The Potential of Autonomous Vehicles

Essay from the year 2019 in the subject Engineering - Automotive Engineering, grade: 1,3, University of Hamburg (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: Sprachlehrveranstaltung Business/Vocational English, language: English, abstract: This paper provides the description and illustration of future possibilities and business models this new and emerging technology may come along with. Firstly, it briefly outlines the current history, to provide a few important milestones in this field within the last two decades. Secondly, this paper discusses those industries which (probably) will mostly be affected by the fundamental changes resulting from driverless cars. Finally, the focus of the last section lies on the business models global players and small start-ups are working on these days to ensure future market shares in a trillion-dollar industry.

The term "autonomous vehicle" has been discussed so often in recent time, and this does not come as a surprise. After the inventions of the horse-drawn carriage and the automobile, humankind is on the brink of the next mobile revolution. While self-driving cars just hit our streets for test purposes nowadays, autonomous vehicles (AVs) will shape the future of mobility, and they will become a common element of traffic.

Besides the technological perspective, which this paper does not discuss at length, AVs will have an impact on many aspects of our daily life and society we can barely imagine today.