How do we prepare for a future with driverless cars? Panel discussion on June 23. 2017 with reporter Ian Telfer.

Futurist Liselotte Lyngsø attended a panel discussion broadcasted on Radio New Zealand RNZ where the main focus was what a world with driverless cars is going to look like.

How will companies and countries prepare for the future, which is just around the corner? Driverless cars will be a significant changing factor for our view on technology. We have to be ready for achieving its full potential, by figuring out every detail that comes with it.

What opportunities will it bring us, and how will our society greet it? Can we redesign the vehicles in order to give the consumer the same feeling of control as if they were driving the car themselves? How will it affect people, that they won’t be able to, or won’t have to drive the car themselves?

Driverless cars creates the future for co-driving

Liselotte addresses co-driving as a possible scenario that is worth fighting for. Spontaneous co-driving in cars will allow os to expand our social lives. Suddenly, we’ll be able to make use of the time that we would normally use on driving alone from A to B. Driverless cars will allow us to catch up with friends, finish our last work meeting or connect with our families whilst being driven to our destinations. It will also create opportunity to socialize and network with a used-to-be stranger from our neighborhood.

“They don’t get road rage. They’re uniform and measured in their moral response. Maybe they’ll be better than we are.”

-Associate Professor, James Maclaurin.

Futurist Liselotte Lyngsø speaks about how we are going to make driving an online marketplace, like we’ve done with Airbnb. People will collect cars as a hobby. The public interest in nice designs, usability and the interest for the sexiness of the cars will continue to rise. People will expect to rent a car according to situation-based personal needs. Private car-ownership might be essential in order to ensure a continued flowering diversity within mobility.

Who will be in control of mobility?

The urgent and most important question to solve, is the question of who will be in control of mobility. As the driverless cars will be connected to the internet of things IOT – it could be at the national level, at the car manufactoring level or at the personal level. Listen to the broadcast and find out why we should integrate the driverless cars, and make up systems so that people will share and make it possible to reduce the numbers of cars on the road and eliminate the need for most of our current public transportation. You will also hear about how  the driver-less future might be a target for new ways of hacking and terrorism that needs to be dealt with.

Listen to the panel discussion here, and imagine the road to driverless cars with motoring journalist David Thomson, Ass. Professor James Maclaurin, CEO of the Ministry of Transport Andrew Jackson and  Futurist, Liselotte Lyngsø. On this link you can also read about the speakers on the panel.