In an ever changing world where the stable, lifelong careers are a thing of the past, where we need to constantly adapt to our environments, stay agile and continue to learn as we progress through life we are also seeing a transport trend that provides ever more options and endless possibilities. The very reflection of these changing, digital times.
The following article will look at some of the mobility options that exist today and that most of us did and could not even image 10 to 20 years back. Quite frankly the vehicle options of today are manifold to say the very least.
Electric Mobility
Battery life and performance keep pushing the boundaries of what was possible until today, research and development costs continue to go down and the plethora of electric vehicles (EVs) and companies that work in the field keeps ever growing. And EVs are available for almost all categories of vehicles today. The following is just a small selection of electric transport solutions:
- Electric cars such as those manufactured by Tesla and increasingly other car manufacturers:
- Electric cruiser Johammer J1 Electric Motorcycle:
- Electric motor bikes as the VISION NEXT 100 from BMW:
- Electric scooters such as the Vespa Elettrica:
- Electric Bikes such as the VanMoov:
- Electric Dirt Bikes such as the KTM E-XC 2020:
- Electric skateboards such as the Elwing Boards:
- Electric monowheel such as the Segway Ninebot One S1:
- Electric onewheel such as the ONEWHEEL Pint:
The list could go on and on. And while ever greater numbers of people are using electrically powered transport solutions particularly in urban areas there are still a lot of challenges ahead. Thus, even while the types of electric vehicles seems to be endless and is set to continuously grow they still face lots of challenges such as the lack of charging station infrastructure etc. Thus, Electric cars are not going to outrun traditional combustion engine powered cars in the short run. In turn EVs still represent only a tiny fraction of the entire car market.
Autonomous driving
After the fatal accident of the Uber autonomous, self-driving car experts still do not expect self-driving vehicles to receive accreditation and to hit the roads in mass any time soon. Nonetheless companies such as GOOGLE’s self driving car nowadays known as Waymo, as well as other companies that are heavily investing in the sector such as Uber
Tesla’s, Cruise’s (GM backed) to cite only some of the companies that are investing huge resources into this sector alone. They continue to develop their solutions and they are set to reach new highs and technical breakthroughs over the next few years. We will see whether or not governments will give their go ahead for Level 5 autonomy (highest level of autonomy) in the near future. Some expect these changes only to be accepted after 2030.
However, there is certainly a new trend towards smart vehicles, which can be up-dated from automakers as the software that is on board of these EVs evolves over time, for instance security vulnerability receive the necessary patches etc. And today’s drivers start to expect these updates to be made just as for other products such as computers, smartphones etc. that receive software updates on a regular basis. A new standard that has been set by Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk when he started selling his sedan EVs. A trend that is now starting to be followed throughout the entire automobile industry by such companies as BMW and GM.
Air Taxis
Nonetheless farther transportation alternatives like air taxis for pilot-less urban transport are also set to continuously alter our relationship with mobility over the coming years. One of the European companies in the race is Airbus’ VAHANA:
Other players include the Spanish TECNALIA from the Basque country:
as well as the German company LILIUM:
These companies have all developed their very own, distinct air taxi systems and it will be interesting to see the final products that they will bring to market in the next few years.
Aerospace
The space industry where a multitude of companies are setting the pace is impacted as well. Blue Origin,
and Rocket Lab are just a few of the actors that are competing in the space race.
But other actors are developing aviation and transport solutions, too. One such actor is Boom Supersonic that is developing commercial jets beyond supersonic speeds. Flying Whales is a French company that is developing a zeppelin airship to carry out low-cost point-to-point transport of heavy and oversized loads.
All these various solutions are being tried out, improved, adjusted as the technology and their respective sectors evolve. This in turn will mean that we will be less reliant on the automobile industry overall. Traffic will shift to different, often entirely new forms of transport. With new software and technological platforms being implemented, these divers forms of public, private and personal vehicles will provide us with a patchwork of mobility. However, once integrated this new type of infrastructure will also provide far more flexibility, which in the end corresponds far better to our constantly changing environment.