A recent report released by Intel and Strategy Analytics estimates that the self-driving car economy could be worth approximately $7 trillion by 2050. Intel says that it expects ride-hailing and sharing services to slowly phase out personal car ownership, adding that this will create a “passenger economy” due to the fact that taxi services will get much cheaper when no humans will be required to drive. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said that all companies should start developing their self-driving vehicle strategy as quickly as possible or risk getting left behind by this rapidly emerging technology. Intel is currently working on self-driving solutions with BMW and has recently acquired Israeli company Mobileye, which specializes in self-driving technology related sensors.
The report from Intel mentioned three main areas of revenue in its estimate. One of them refers to “consumer mobility-as-a-service,” which refers to ride-sharing and hailing services and is expected to bring in around $3.7 trillion by 2050. The report says that ride-sharing services are expected to become extremely popular in the future when cities become overcrowded and more people move to the suburbs, thus removing traditional means of commuting to work. “Business mobility-as-a-service,” which covers trucking and deliveries, accounts for $3 trillion of the estimate and the rest of the figure was attributed to in-vehicle applications and services which are expected to earn around $200 billion. The report also suggests that autonomous cars will free up over 250 billion hours that individuals would usually spend commuting and thus possibly indirectly boosting the global economy.
The data gathered by Intel and Strategy Analytics also indicates that autonomous vehicles could save approximately $234 billion in public safety and cut the number of road deaths that occur in industries such as trucking. Trucking has one of the highest numbers of fatalities each year in the United States, with 745 people killed in road accidents related to the trucking industry in 2016 alone. Intel predicts that self-driving cars will be a fairly mainstream technology by 2035 and will be worth around $800 billion by then. Time will tell whether the company’s predictions hold true but more details on the autonomous driving industry and Intel’s related business endeavors should be available shortly.