Running head: EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

Emerging technologies and business practices

Name

Institution
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Introduction

Emerging technologies are technologies which are viewed to cause drastic changes in the

status quo. Emerging technologies are the relative term. It’s a new technology that is being

developed or will be developed in the near future of about ten or five years to come. The new

technology will disrupt the social and business environment. Examples of the technology include

man-machine technologies, information technology, wireless data communication,

biotechnologies, advanced robotics and on-demanding printing. Self-driving car forms part of the

emerging technologies that would disrupt the existing business environment. The vehicle has the

ability to navigate and sense its environment without much human input (Milder, 2018).

Potential

A human being doesn’t make great choices behind wheels. Self-driving machine

perceived to be better than human beings is hoped will improve the situation. Though, it’s going

to take a number of years before AVs become cheap for individuals to purchase and operate in

an outside geofenced and predefined areas. The self-driving cars are expected to dramatically

reduce the number of deaths on the roads. The cars will be free of texting, drinking and other

dangers that will reduce the number of deaths. The self-driving cars aimed to be sold to

consumers are still very far away from being fully exploited. The initial sell will encompass ride-

hailing companies such as Lyft and Uber or will be in a controlled environment like the shuttle

campus bus. The automatic blind spot warning systems, automatic breaking technology, and

other features will save many lives on the road. However, these options are available only to the

higher end models hence the developers of the technology should asses the safety gaps potential

between the poor and the rich drivers. Safety should not be a preserve for only those who can

afford it (Morley, 2018).

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Deployment of large-scale AVs begins with geofenced robotaxi services in several other

cities such as Dubai and Singapore and later expands to other areas after several years. The

Alphabet’s AV effort called Waymo is testing robotaxi service in Chandler and its commercial

service is expected to be launched this year. Pittsburg and Phoenix are having driverless taxis

being operated by Uber. The autonomous car supervised by an engineer picks up users who hail

a ride. An AV startup called voyage operates a robotaxi service in the villages of San Jose, a

retirement community and its expanding to other areas such as Florida. A French start-up called

Navya manages an eight-seater autonomous shuttle bus in the downtown of Las Vegas and has

predefined three stops in a 0.6mile route. A rival French firm called Easymile runs a number of

shuttle bus across other cities of the world (Morley, 2019).

The newness of the project

To purchase a fully self-driving car requires that you will wait for another ten years. The

autonomous self-driving cars will initially be sold to rob taxi-fleet operators and not to private

owners because of two reasons. First, the LIDAR sensor is quite expensive. If deployed with the

cars under production they would cost more than the rest of the vehicle assembled at the point. In

a robotaxi that uses the AV, it becomes less of a problem since the vehicle will be generating

revenues while being operated throughout the day while the private cars will only use 5% of their

time. The second reason, AVs work easier, safely and reliably in an environment that is limited

to places that have been mapped with fine details such as the geographical environment of a city

center. So the AV that will be used as the first ride will hail using an app that you don’t possess.

Many young urbanites are expected to abandon the existing car ownership and embrace the robot

axis as the initial rollout of the relatively less expensive robot axis will be conducted.
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Most autonomous cars in the recent world are ordinary cars that have been simply

retrofitted to drive themselves. They take away the purpose of the pedals and the steering wheel

and assume a wide range of sizes and shapes. For example, the Mercedes-Benzes F015 and

Volkswagen’s Sedric have pods in the passenger seats that face each other. The AVs is expected

to allow physical separation of passengers to motivate people towards sharing vehicles with

strangers while hailing in families shall involve different vehicles that allow for families to sit

together (Nielsen & Haustein, 2018).

How the change impact business practices

The robotaxi fleet moving around the clock will generate revenues that are highly

predictable and hence will attract institutional investors. Robotaxi fleets will evolve to introduce

asset managers of the fleet thus becomes a logical step for the car makers whose finance

management will be involved in fleet management. The model for pricing users will change.

Testing of telecoms is being conducted by Uber for example price per month plans in some cities

that include a specific number of miles or rides for the fixed price just like plans on the mobile

phone calling offering a certain amount of texts, calls, and data.

Most car dealers are currently unprofitable and are making their money mostly from

servicing and car refinancing thus shifting car ownership to shared taxis will greatly impact on

their profitability. Parts makers and repair shops could suffer too if we assume AVs will reduce

the number of vehicle accidents. AVs are currently posing a threat to the future profitability and

regulatory filings of the parts suppliers. The insurance companies will be affected by the

introduction of the AVs due to fewer accidents and reduced number of private car ownership.

Personal injury lawyers and health care providers will suffer too if we reduce the number of

accidents on the roads. The introduction of AVs has threatened directly people who drive
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delivery vehicles, taxis and trucks (Ostrovsky & Schwarz, 2018). Lyft and Uber have maintained

that they will require human drivers on some routes in the years to come and hence the job of

driving will be redefined rather than abolished. To manhandle large packages into the homes of

customers, delivery drivers could be employed. Vehicle platoons traveling on the highway will

be overseen by the truck drivers. New jobs will be created by the AVs for mobile repair workers

and remote fleet supervisors (Ostrovsky & Schwarz, 2018).

The combination of autonomous driving technologies and ride-hailing technology

confronts the makers of the self-driving cars with a challenge in the business model. The result

of such complex cases and challenging business has made car owners focusing on car sharing

services and ride-hailing while progressing with their own AV programs. In the near future

where ownership of cars will be optional (Morley, 2019). The above-named shift will offer car

makers with a better opportunity. With the existing car market worth of around $2trillion per

year worldwide, while those for personal cars is worth $10 trillion, best business opportunity

awaits the car owners manufacturers. Owing to the above facts, they will be exposed to other

new competitors in the form of ride-hailing networks and technology companies. Some of the

existing car makers have launched personalized mobility services, while others have embraced

fleet management business services where car-hailing operators will be assisted with charges per

mile. Other challenges include the reason that fleet badge may use the ‘white label’ with the ride-

hailing network and city name rather than using their own brands (JafariNaimi, 2018).

Concerns have been raised with respect to the impact of AVs on the number of vehicles

being sold worldwide per annum that is about 80m. With cars being unused from about 95% of

their time, the introduction of shared robotaxis that operates throughout 24/7 is expected to

reduce the number of vehicles operating on the road. By 2030, we expect the number of vehicles
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on the road and fleet size to reduce by more than half. With the usage of robotics at 50% of the

time rather than the existing 5%, they will require to be replaced far more often. Thus the

number of new vehicles needed each year will increase unless we work on extending the lifespan

of the vehicles (Morley, 2019).

Teslas production has intimated that the production of a high number of vehicles is quite

problematic. Excellent manufacturing remains their core expertise for over a decade. Therefore,

in the robotaxis world, being carmaker will remain a formidable business but quite different from

the existing one. The new technology will experience a paradigm shift from making hardware to

manufacture of services and software in a more serious way. This will involve retraining staff,

acquisitions, and partnership. A switch to electric vehicles will be accelerated which need fewer

assembly workers and fewer components. Both carmakers and cars will change shape

(Greenblatt, 2016).

Specific projects to apply new technology

The productivity in mines is expected to rise with continued use of self-driving vehicles.

The underground mines will provide the first test of autonomous vehicles. Volvo conducted the

test by standing on the way of the truck and it surely stopped. The underground mine provide

perfect testing ground for trucks. The vehicle automation is valuable since it reduces the per

person safety costs of working underground and thus increases productivity. Using the data from

the mines, the vehicle can move faster in places with no people but LIDAR detectors can

successfully apply the brakes if necessary. The system of hauling in the underground tunnel

shifts for changes and breaks. It operates 24/7 without people. It moves staff from the ground to

the surface and automates the mining and the vehicle process thus increasing productivity.
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Autonomous vehicles will be offered by Volvo to other closed site operations such as quarries,

logistics hubs, harbors and open pit mines (Häne & Pollefeys, 2015).

Lessons learned

The two elements that include safe vehicles and state of the art software are important in

designing, building, and construction of future car automobiles. The automobile industry as

currently constituted has very high entry barriers. Therefore it becomes easier for startup

industries to align their technology with the vehicles that already exist (Ostrovsky & Schwarz,

2018). The partnership between newcomers to the sector and traditional manufacturers allows

them to combine skillsets of automakers and boldness of the youth in startups. The general

public seems to trust the auto manufacturers that build solid safe cars while the startups have

wide experience in software development and computing. For example, accidents involving

future self-driving cars are covered by Volvo but the startups might be unwilling to keep the

promise into accepting liability (Daily & Trivedi, 2017).

Most tech companies and startup do not have auto industry experience but it’s proven to

possess strength in some respects. The startups demonstrate the ability to innovate in a radical

and bold way that is prone to errors. In all its models, Tesla has experienced delays in delivery

and other fatal accidents. The startup companies in technology are known to approach innovation

that contradicts the manufacturing and design culture emanating from the industrial hub of

Detroit in Michigan. The fact that they are making vehicles for the first time, they can easily

express themselves freely without deeply routed restrictions and working ways that to a large

extent makes the traditional manufacturers more hesitant when it comes to innovation. The

incremental means of introducing innovation by the traditional manufacturers make their way

towards self-driving a step by step process (Ostrovsky & Schwarz, 2018). On the other hand,
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young startup has a minimum level of anxiety and want to attain the objective as soon as

possible. For example, Ford is presently working on thirty different ways of making the

autonomous vehicle including the automatic brake system. Fully self-driving cars are built from

scratch by Google which is considered an ambitious and faster approach that is riskier as it has

not stood the test of time.

The developers of the autonomous vehicles are keen on collaborating with startups and

traditional car manufacturer which has stepped up a notch higher in the recent periods. For

example, the partnership between Uber and Toyota to provide a leasing program for Uber

drivers. An Israel based startup called Gett announced a partnership with Volkswagen to connect

taxi drivers and customers. One billion dollars was pumped by Apple into Didi Ching (Chinese

version of Uber), while Fiat Chrysler teamed up with Google to manufacture a fleet of mini-vans

for self-driving. Rules and regulations are expected to be changed and adapted overnight

(Morley, 2019).

Conclusion and recommendation

It appears the car industry is about to undergo drastic changes for the next 20 years

compared to when it was first created. However, it has widely been suggested that selling a kit

designed to convert existing ordinary car into the self-driving vehicle will encourage wide uptake

of self-driving cars by the general public. The project is currently being undertaken by Pearl

Automation Inc., Nauto, and Geohot. The increasing number of a partnership between the

traditional automakers and the tech startups reckons on working towards increasing uptake of car

automation services. Though they are from different firms, they share a common interest but is

expected that their concepts of self-driving vehicles may differ sharply due to different business

focus. It’s apparently clear that the introduction of AV will cause the car industry and the
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accompanying business to change shape more dramatically in a couple of decades to come.

Consequences will continue being felt. The AVs will impact on a social and cultural aspect of

people in cities and thus attract far-reaching consequences (Ostrovsky & Schwarz, 2018).

Traditional car manufacturers see self-driving cars with computers while their counterpart

from the fledgling Silicon Valley view’s car automation as computers on wheels. The good thing

is the fact that they both aim at having self-driving cars on the road as soon as possible. We need

to formulate policies and regulations that govern autonomous vehicles. For example, Uber, Lyft,

Volvo and Ford introduced a lobbying group called ‘Self Driving Coalition for Safer Streets’ to

assist in shaping the US policy on regulating AVs. Unforeseen situations on public roads are

impossible to automate. Therefore, such support should be seen as likely to support rather than

replace drivers (Morley, 2019). It will reduce mistakes and ensure safety. Regulatory changes

will be applied here to supervise autonomous vehicles that move in continuous periods.
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Refeernces

Bojarski, M., Del Testa, D., Dworakowski, D., Firner, B., Flepp, B., Goyal, P., ... & Zhang, X.

(2016). End to end learning for self-driving cars. arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.07316.

Daily, M., Medasani, S., Behringer, R., & Trivedi, M. (2017). Self-Driving Cars. Computer,

50(12), 18-23.

Greenblatt, N. A. (2016). Self-driving cars and the law. IEEE spectrum, 53(2), 46-51.

Häne, C., Sattler, T., & Pollefeys, M. (2015, September). Obstacle detection for self-driving cars

using only monocular cameras and wheel odometry. In Intelligent Robots and Systems

(IROS), 2015 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on(pp. 5101-5108). IEEE.

JafariNaimi, N. (2018). Our bodies in the trolley’s path, or why self-driving cars must* not* be

programmed to kill. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 43(2), 302-323.

Milder, N. D. (2018). Let’s get real about self-driving cars: The transition will take a significant

amount of time. Journal of Urban Regeneration & Renewal, 11(3), 223-232.

Morley, J. (2019). How Software Matters: Connective Tissue and Self-Driving Cars. In Social

Practices and Dynamic Non-Humans (pp. 173-192). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Nielsen, T. A. S., & Haustein, S. (2018). On skeptics and enthusiasts: What are the expectations

towards self-driving cars?. Transport policy, 66, 49-55.

Ostrovsky, M., & Schwarz, M. (2018). Carpooling and the Economics of Self-Driving Cars (No.

w24349). National Bureau of Economic Research.

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Yang, Z., Zhang, Y., Yu, J., Cai, J., & Luo, J. (2018). End-to-end Multi-Modal Multi-Task

Vehicle Control for Self-Driving Cars with Visual Perception. arXiv preprint

arXiv:1801.06734.