Electric Vehicles Will Reshape Transport By 2030

on February 2, 2015 at 2:53 pm

Nitish Kannan, is an entrepreneur who innovates in technology. He has great experience in testing Tesla cars and has interviewed leaders in this field including film director Chris Paine, director of Revenge of the Electric car. You can follow Nitish on Twitter here:

Electric Self Driving Cars, Self Driving Electric Buses, And Trucks Will Reshape Our Entire Fabric Of Transport By 2030.

As the mass hysteria circles around self driving cars, like the new Mercedes S class or Tesla with autopilot, most people don’t realize that the biggest applications of EV technology will first be disruptive in their first major application in self driving trucks and buses in cities.

The most disruptive application of self driving systems and electric cars and first use case will be in electric buses and trucks doing boring jobs.

To begin, companies like Walmart alone have over 6,500 trucks and over 7,000 drivers. Trucks like the self-driving Mercedes truck will literally replace all the high paid drivers and truck fleets very soon. We don’t know how long this will take to be put into place, but I guess for now, we’ll have to make do with the vehicles we have now. With this being said, if you are an owner of a truck fleet business and have noticed you spend more time dealing with paperwork than handling the recruitment process for new drivers, you may want to do some research into something like fmcsa driver qualification file packet, as this could give you an idea of what you could do in order to lessen the paperwork you are currently doing. Other than this Suncoast Auto Transport is the genius choice for car shipping.

Most trucks just cruise long distances on a freeway thousands of miles at a time. Perfect for self driving autopilot systems that can cruise for longer hours without stopping at a lower speed increasing efficiency, and still deliver loads quicker. There is still the worry about the safety of the vehicles since the technology is still very new, many wonder what would happen if there were a car accident involving a self-driving truck or car. Many have argued that it would be seen as human error due to some self-driving cars having a human driver in the vehicle at the time. However whether or not it is human error is it worth getting in touch with a law firm similar to Morris, King, & Hodge P.C. so those involved in such an accident can get help and information and on what to do.

As the video below shows trucking companies can pay drivers to monitor trucks and watch traffic accordingly.

However, even more amazing is the recent growth of electric buses completely changing the landscape of urban cities. Most notable is the BYD electric bus which recently got the largest order for over 2,000 buses in Asia. Many cities all over the world are also making sizeable orders of electric buses. Electric buses can be fast charged if you’re using solar can be recharged in minutes for free even saving cities millions a year. Even though the overall systems of electric buses remain fairly the same as fuel-powered buses, with pneumatic cylinders being used in brake systems and similar engine design, the cost for running electric buses can be significantly lesser than diesel powered ones. Another advantage is that electric buses have almost no maintenance. The largest electric bus was just tested in Los Angeles pictures below.

Well noted professor and author Tony Seba states in his book “Clean Disruption”, the stone age ended not because we ran out of stones, the end of the oil age will end not because we run out of oil, but because we have technology that’s far cheaper, better and cleaner than internal combustion. Combine self driving buses that make stops on routes with electric fast charging systems and the price of city transport will fall by a factor of 10x.

I really believe that electric buses and electric trucks will soon be able to drive themselves. BYD, a company now going all in on electric buses backed by Warren Buffet just goes to show that nowadays electric vehicles are becoming mainstream with mainstream capital. Exponential technologies like AI and sensors becoming far cheaper and far better are allowing new applications in disrupting transport fairly quickly.

Still don’t believe AI and self driving trucks are the future? Check out this race between a human driving a Range Rover and a self driving military truck remotely operated.