Autonomous vehicle revolution could catch out property investors

How quickly is the shift to autonomous vehicles likely to happen? According to some, like Stanford University’s Any Seba, it could occur in a decade or less, meaning that for many people they have possible bought their last ever vehicle.

This is a change that will dramatically reshape people’s lifestyles, and business models. Shared ownership of cars and fleets will dominate over private ownership, and the implications are dramatic for the transport fuel industry, the transport industry, road infrastructure, and property owners.

Remarkably, a new survey finds that two thirds of property owners believe the advent of autonomous driving will have an impact within 5 to 10 years, but hardly any of them given any thought on how they would repurpose the assets that will be affected – car parking (who will need it), charging stations and the like.

A new report suggests that what is needed is a “leaded petrol moment” when cars as we know them are banned from our cities to make way for a wave of autonomous vehicles (AV).

Read the full story on RenewEconomy’s electric vehicle-dedicated site, The Driven…

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