Self-Driving Cars Could Change the Auto Industry

The auto industry stands to benefit significantly with the growth of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly with the emergence of self-driving cars. Vehicles will soon stop relying on the human-operated steering wheel and pedals to move. Instead, they will be propelled by specially-designed software.

Technology is making driving more comfortable, and our roads safer.

We are already seeing partially automated cars that have some automated features, and everyone will agree that this technology is making driving easier and our roads safer. Parking and collision detection features, in particular, no longer depend on the input of human drivers, bringing order in busy parking lots. Things are looking up for the auto sector.

Here are five other changes that self-driving cars will soon bring to the auto industry.

1. Tech companies could take over the auto industry from traditional auto manufacturers.

Auto manufacturers have a tendency of dragging their feet when it comes to adopting new technologies. A good proof of this reluctance is the long period that the automobile industry took before embracing full-featured electric cars.

Things are about to change now since tech companies are gradually making inroads into auto development and manufacturing.

Google and Apple, for example, are already experimenting with autonomous car models. Traditional car manufacturing companies must, therefore, up their game lest they be edged out from their own industry.

2. Zero road incidents.

Increased road safety is one of the main talking points for as far as autonomous cars are concerned. Road users have, for a long time, been dreaming of a time when there will be zero accident cases.

IoT technology will enable cars to communicate with each other on the road; that dream isn’t far from coming to life.

The human limitations such as poor vision and fatigue will no longer cause accidents on our roads. Also, driverless cars will always adhere to traffic rules, unlike human drivers, who sometimes become reckless.

3. Better car warranties and insurance terms.

You will soon be paying less for your car warranty and insurance premium thanks to the zero-incident future that driverless cars will bring. Once these cars become affordable to the lower middle class, human-driven cars will be out of our roads, and city authorities will have to design better smarter roads.

The roads and the cars will be communicating through camera technology and sensors, which will make pathways smooth and car collisions nonexistence. Car sellers will, in that case, have no reason not to prolong car warranties.

There is a high chance that no car will need expensive repairs within the period in which the warranty is in force, after all. The only maintenance practices that car owners will need to do is keep their cars’ software updated at all times.

4. The cybersecurity factor.

Traffic flow and road safety will be significantly improved once autonomous cars are fully integrated into our transportation system, but that is not to mean that things will be smooth all the way. Outdated car software, for example, will be vulnerable to cyber criminality, meaning that cybersecurity experts will become very relevant in the auto industry.

The communication interfaces on our roads will also be vulnerable to hacking, in which case zero-incident roads will be a pipedream. Think of a situation where a malicious cyber attacker gains access to the servers used to direct autonomous vehicles and goes ahead to confuse them all.

Confusions or misdirections could cause fatal accidents, confusion, and panic all over the place. Also, imagine all the private user data that could be stolen in case the road network in a city is compromised.

It could get worse: Think of a case where someone hacks into smart city infrastructure and instructs all autonomous vehicles from all sides of an intersection to proceed towards the intersection all at once. That would precipitate an unimaginable collision.

For the reasons above, all stakeholders in the auto and transportation industries will need to employ robust, appropriate, and foolproof data security solutions on our roads. On your part, you will need to buy a VPN for your autonomous car to be completely safe from the mentioned cybersecurity threats.

A VPN will block malicious attackers from spying on your data or compromising your car’s software.

5. Ridesharing business will boom.

Lastly, the ridesharing business will grow tremendously with the adoption of autonomous cars. Uber and Lyft are already making notable strides in the transportation sector, particularly because people trust in their efficiency more than the rest of public transportation.

This efficiency is just about to improve thanks to the driverless technology. Driverless cars will necessitate low maintenance costs so that ridesharing services will be cheaper for the consumer and highly profitable for the ridesharing service providers.

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Elliot Rhodes

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