I recently bought a used car and a few days after I got it home, a friend asked me this, "Do you think this is the last car you'll ever buy?"
We often talk about self-driving cars, so I already knew exactly what he was aiming at with this. He was suggesting that both autonomous driving and cab service technologies are advancing so quickly that by the time I need a new car, I may not need to buy one at all.
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By 2035, IHS estimates that 76 million cars around the world will have reached some level of autonomy. Even now, we are finding semi-automatic cars that can stay in their lane, brake automatically in emergency situations, and slow down to match their own speed to that of the car in front. Some of these cars are available for as little as 20.000 US dollars.
Self-driving cars are becoming practically cheaper and cheaper and this technology is found more and more often on the roads. Therefore you could also decide to save your installments for a car and use another service instead.
Image source: Getty Images.
Car manufacturers invest in the future
To understand how we might live in a future where we no longer need our own cars, we only need to look at what carmakers are already doing now.
Elon Musk recently unveiled a new version of his master plan for Tesla (WKN:A1CX3T), and in the process, a new service found itself. If the company's vehicles can drive completely autonomously by 2018 or 2019, according to Musk, Tesla owners will also be able to allow their cars to drive around on their own and be hired by other people.
Musk wrote the following:
It will also be possible to add your own car to the Tesla fleet by simply pressing a button on the smartphone app. Thus, the car generates income for you when you are at work or on vacation and this income could in part significantly exceed your leasing costs and the cost of the car loan.
Musk also said Tesla would make its own self-driving cars available in areas where there is more demand for Tesla vehicles than there are privately owned Teslas. So you can practically always drive a Tesla, no matter where you are, Musk says. We must not forget that this is not an advertising slogan from a cab company or a cab organization service. This is simply the direction Musk sees his company going in the future.
But Tesla is not the only company with this innovative mentality. We should still look at what General Motors (WKN:A1C9CM) is doing right now. The company last year launched a car-sharing service called Maven. This allows some GM owners to rent out their vehicles when they are not using them themselves. These cars don't drive themselves yet, but the company sees this as a first step toward a future where people are less inclined to own their own cars.
In a press release, GM stated that 25 million of its customers around the world will participate in this mobility concept by 2020. Maven is described as "a key element of our strategy" to "reflect the changing ownership environment in the auto industry". Maven is now in 17 cities across North America and in just 11 months, the service has 22.Can attract 000 members. In addition, 57 million miles have already been traveled with it.
Ford (WKN:502391) has its own car-sharing service and is developing self-driving cars just as GM is. Ford has made it clear that it wants to produce a self-driving car for the mass market and combine that with car sharing by 2021. The company is already testing 13 self-driving Fusion Hybrid models in several states and plans to triple the number of test vehicles this year.
Other carmakers are also moving in this direction. Fiat Chrysler (WKN:A12CBU) is partnering with Alphabet's (WKN:A14Y6H) Google to test a fleet of 100 self-driving minivans. These will be the basis for a cab service that is due to start operating at the end of the year. It is still unclear exactly what the service will look like or whether Fiat Chrysler will play a major role in it. But it's clear that the automaker believes in this service from Waymo.
Do we really not need a car anymore??
It's hard to answer this question, of course. Most people have yet to see a fully autonomous vehicle on the road, let alone ride in one.
But John Zimmer, the co-founder and president of cab service provider Lyft, believes that by 2025 there will be virtually no vehicle owners left in major U.S. cities. Lyft also expects the majority of its vehicles to be able to drive autonomously by 2021. Competitor Uber is testing similar strategies right now.
Other companies have set similar deadlines for the end of vehicle ownership. Georg Bauer, who has held senior positions at Daimler, BMW and Tesla, told Business Insider last year he believed that in five to 10 years, no one would have a car anymore.
Government regulations and our own fear of giving up control of our car, however, could keep the culture of car ownership going longer than some believe. But it's clear that tech companies and automakers are betting that the future of the automobile will look significantly different than it does today. Like many other things, the transition from vehicle ownership to renting a self-driving car will of course be gradual. So far, though, it has to be said that everything is moving in just that direction, and I'd love to see a future where you don't have to pay off car loans anymore.
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Suzanne Frey is an executive at Alphabet and a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors.
The Motley Fool owns and recommends Alphabet (A and C), Ford and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends General Motors.