How autonomous ridesharing will reshape our cars, cities, and lives

Presenters and panels offered a variety of plans and visions for the next generation of technological advances in mobility.

One such panel focused on how the industry would likely disrupt transportation in a number of ways. Speakers agreed there are four main drivers of disruption in transportation and mobility today: autonomy, electrification, connectivity, and shared mobility.

“Those trends are not possible without each other, and they are accelerating each other,” said Andreas Breiter, associate partner at McKinsey & Company, a large global business consulting firm with offices in more than 120 cities around the world.

Kamal Khouri is vice president and general manager of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems for NXP Semiconductors, the largest semiconductor provider for automotive OEMs in the world.

“It’s an exciting time,” Khouri maintained. “It’s unique to have all these megatrends converge on a single market. We’re in the middle of developing a technology that has a tremendous impact on our planet and on humanity. We’re introducing all these technologies and there’s this race: who’s going to get there first? How will we get seamless connectivity so we can use our time in the vehicle? Especially with the introduction of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), it makes the challenge of providing a safe and secure solution a difficult problem.”