The future of mobility
Emailed on January 24th 2020 in The Friday Forward
This week two California auto companies shared their visions for the future of mobility, and it's not looking good for car lovers.
In San Francisco, GM self-driving subsidiary, Cruise, unveiled "Origin," their new shuttle.
“It’s self-driven. It’s all-electric. It’s shared,” Cruise chief Dan Ammann wrote in a blog post. Ammann, a former GM exec, posted a teaser in December saying “We need to move beyond the car.”
Ammann argues that personal vehicles have low utilization rates and require valuable city real estate, adding that internal combustion engines produce too many emissions.
Origin is designed to be a mass production vehicle that will eventually plug into a GM/Cruise self-driving, ridesharing service. GM has already petitioned U.S. safety officials to approve this type of vehicle, which doesn’t have a steering wheel or pedals, so don’t expect that regulatory approval to come through anytime soon (picture below).
Canoo, a boutique startup designing EVs from the ground up, launched its waitlist this week. The catch: You can’t own a Canoo, you can only subscribe to it. Canoo subscribers pay a monthly fee for a bundle that includes a Canoo EV, maintenance, registration, access to insurance, and charging. The service launches next year. With a wraparound bench, the Canoo’s inside is designed to feel like a living room.
It looks very similar to the Cruise Origin (see below).
The real question is: Which is cooler in 2030? Cruising in a self-driving toaster or manually-driving a PT Cruiser.