April 26, 2018—As vehicle owners potentially shift from owning vehicles to ride-sharing and autonomous services, one major question that stems from this is how these vehicles will be serviced. Jim Lang, president of Lang Marketing, touched on that topic in a recent interview with Ratchet+Wrench.
In Lang’s eyes, the two issues that will stem from this trend are how many vehicles there are going to be, and who will own them.
“If the vehicles become a utility, they’re likely going to be owned by large companies rather than individuals,” Lang says. “Who owns them will determine where they’re serviced largely. How many there will be will impact the service market in product volume.”
Regardless, Lang believes the days of seeing autonomous and ride-sharing vehicles used as a utility, on a wide scale basis, is many years off. Right now, ride sharing occurs mostly in urban areas, and companies who create autonomous vehicles may already the technology in place, but still have to figure out how to adapt their driving to certain climates or road conditions.
“You might be able to do it in certain locales like metropolitan areas, but to drive on secondary roads, interstate roads, country roads, that’s a challenge which really hasn’t been met by all this testing,” Lang said.
