Does the name Goldman Sachs sound familiar? They’re a mom-and-pop investment bank in New York City that manages $850 billion every year for their clients.
Yeah. $850 billion.
We mention Goldman Sachs because they just released a guide to how cars in America and the world are about to undergo a huge transformation. And when a company as big as GS mentions the automotive industry, our ears perk up.
We excerpted the best bits of their guide below, and we recommend you check out the full guide at this link. It’s very visual and fun to look at, as the screenshots show.
This image represents the single largest change coming to cars: CO2 emissions. CO2 is the carbon dioxide that comes out of your tailpipe. It’s poisonous to our lungs and is heating the entire earth up.
Lawmakers are responding by passing laws to reduce CO2 emissions from cars while carmakers figure out how to eliminate them completely. That means getting rid of cars that use gasoline and diesel.
Why now? This chart is why. The gray bars represent developed nations such as the U.S. As you can see, our number of car purchases isn’t projected to increase.
The blue bars, however, represent emerging nations. As their economies grow and their peoples can buy more cars, they are going to do that. That’s why there will be so much more CO2 in the air.
Self-driving cars are our number one way to cut down on pollution. If the car can drive itself, it can more efficiently avoid collisions, bypass traffic, and manage fuel use.
Because cars today need a drive to operate, they only spend 2% of their time, on average, being driven. A self-driving car, however, doesn’t need a driver. It can spend 100% of its time giving people rides. That’s a lot more efficient.
It would also be a big change in how we think of cars (that everyone needs their own). We like not sharing. But self-driving cars would cut down on traffic, pollution, collisions, and the amount of income we spend on transportation. And more money in your pocket is a good thing, right?
Speaking of money, these new self-driving, less-polluting cars are going to need parts that are a lot more expensive than the ones we use now. That means repairs will be more costly.
Letting an automaker, or fleet-operator like Uber, be responsible for all the costs of ownership would solve that problem. No more repair bills!
The good news is that these new-fangled cars could potentially use a lot fewer parts than our current cars. Fewer parts mean less that could go wrong, and less frequent trips to the mechanic.
As the image shows, an electric vehicle has about one-third as many parts as a gasoline-powered car. We need to simplify, people.
So anyway, we wanted to give you a heads-up about the change that’s coming. We’re getting ready for it, too, and will be a resource for you. Is this how you think the future of cars will change? Tell us on Facebook. You may be right!