An example of when they really get the future wrong! And it wasn’t long ago. Futurism in business isn’t supposed to be a speculation exercise. Well, that is what this article on 110 Predictions for the Next 110 Years in Popular Mechanics is. Often it’s these types of examples that come up in those quick stretch brainstorms to think about the future. It’s only when you start to begin asking why and really drilling down that you can begin investigating what might really be important. Then, you start changing mental models.
Here’s an example of what they said around the “connected car”. After the quote I’ll add a different POV. Smart companies will go well beyond these simple predictions.
Your Car Will Be Truly Connected
- It will communicate with traffic lights to improve traffic flow.
- It will interact with other vehicles to prevent accidents.
- It will let you drag and drop a playlist from your home network.
- It will find the gas station with the deepest discount and handle the payment.
- It will notify you when someone dents your door and supply footage of the incident.
via 110 Predictions For the Next 110 Years – Popular Mechanics. (numbered by me for clarity)
So according to Popular Mechanics the above by 2022. By way of contrast, here’s my take on it:
1. Communicate with traffic lights: Is this all or just some cars. The average age of cars means replacement of 98% of the fleet isn’t going to happen any time soon. So will there be a regulation that requires car to “communicate” with traffic lights? What’s the technology required and does this idea really make sense? Let’s just say… if all cars could communicate with traffic lights then perhaps we don’t even need traffic lights. I won’t even go into the security issues, breakdowns, time-outs in connectivity, the timing issues, etc. etc.
2. Interact with vehicles: This is a lot like the famed DSRC program where V2V communications will be the big thing. Let’s note that even if this is mandated, there are many ways it can be gamed or abused. Again there are security issues, recognition issues and unless regulations force it only a small number of cars will have it on. The best way for your car to interact with another car is just like you would – from an unconnected stance. Yes the failsafe for a fully autonomous vehicle is the equivalent of a connection outage. V2V can potentially provide many new things. Just the current thinking and tests are way behind the reality of how fast self-driving vehicles are progressing and how they must work.
Image: Courtesy Financial Review (afr.com)
3. Use home network playlist: Wow you mean I drive home and it will get music? This idea died with smartphones and USBs years ago. Now, connecting with your home network might be smart and useful. More likely working more effectively with your mobile while in the car will extend to many new services and capabilities. Cars have black boxes. I wish they were opening up the API’s so users could do more with them. It is coming!
4. Find a gas station and make payments: Please, a gas station? Will we even need it if we drive Teslas in 2020? Finding the cheapest? Handling payment. Have you used Waze lately? Sorry maybe I missed the piece that this predictive article was supposed to be tongue in cheek. Gas Station retailers are already working on how to make the smartphone in my pocket the quick key to a fill-up. Most of us hate the time waste of button for Zip Code and rejecting car washes and more. Who and how will it be solved Waze, Passbook, Chevron, BMW etc? The current biggest pain is in the payment.
5. Accident notification: Great I get a notification while I’m in the middle of a concert I’ve paid a fortune to go and see and the visual. No! I don’t want a real-time notification. Damage is done. I may well want a record. And this is a good example of asking —- if we get all these sensors on cars, the lidar, radar etc that are on many already to help with cruise control. When do those same systems get repurposed for theft alarms or “screaming” or “honking” when another car gets too close to where they are parked.
So… when you want to start an upstream journey, thinking about where the future might take you, recognize your need to dig much deeper than these overhyped trends type lists. Only then do you stand a chance of creating the future for us.