According to Teslarati, Ford’s operations head for Autonomous Vehicles (John Rich), recently said that the demand for cars will rise with the deployment of autonomous technology. According to Rich, as self-driving vehicles experience consistent usage, the wear and tear of a vehicle’s components will increase. Because of this, Rich believes that autonomous cars will only last four years. Other analysts, however, believe the demand for automobiles will decline as autonomous vehicles are deployed in mobility solutions. In fact a RethinkX analysis in 2017 predicted that new vehicles sales in the U.S. will decline to 5.6 million vehicles in 2030 from 18 million in 2020 due to the disruption in the passenger vehicle value chain caused by the rise of autonomous transportation. Teslerati suggests that Rich’s four-year lifespan prediction for autonomous vehicles might be due to an expectation that most autonomous vehicles will be internal combustion engine (ICE) cars and not electric vehicles. The RethinkX study predicts that new ICE vehicle sales will decline to zero by 2024 as autonomous EV technology is deployed. New ICE vehicles becoming non-existent by 2024 seems unreasonable. However, the fate of new ICE vehicles over some time frame seems to point to their extinction.
Will Autonomous Vehicles Drive Down Vehicle Demand?
