MaaS and autonomous vehicles seem to have been on the ‘brink of becoming widely accessible’ for a while now. For the last 5 years we’ve been hearing: ‘In 2 years, we’ll be driven by driverless cars’. This wait seems to be coming to an end. And fast.

Autonomous mobility has been evolving at high speed and has challenged consumers and businesses -- now moving away from vehicle ownership and towards service-based transport.

This trend is naturally more prevalent in urban areas, where people have greater mobility options. Let this sink in: by 2025 almost half of drivers will choose not to own a personal vehicle. Why? Mainly due to on-demand private car hire companies, such as Uber and Lyft – both standard in most large cities worldwide.

Accelerated development for autonomous vehicles

The landscape of mobility is fast changing, and there’s no time to pull over now.

There are some key factors that have contributed to the rapid increase in autonomous vehicle development. Let’s unpack them here:

COVID fast-tracks MaaS milestones

Despite the devastating global impacts caused by the pandemic, when it comes to autonomous vehicles the impact has been far from disappointing.

On the contrary, hardship led to opportunity.

Pre-pandemic, autonomous vehicle testing companies were off to a flying start, testing with gusto. Things quickly changed: safety drivers had to be removed from behind the wheel, as social contact regulations came into effect.

This pushed companies to continue testing, without safety drivers, progressing to the next big step: fully autonomous testing.

Matured technology and testing call shotgun

The most important data captured by MaaS operators is known as miles per disengagement. What is this exactly? Put simply, the average distance autonomous vehicles can travel, without human involvement. Due to technology maturity this distance is doubling annually. IDTechEx makes an informed prediction: 3 years from now driverless cars will drive better than the average American -- giving new meaning to: “Look Mom, no hands!”

Sensors: new and improved!

LiDAR technology is critical in autonomous cars – providing quality object classification and night-time performance ranging. Apple has really come to the party with their latest sensor product, LiDAR on iPhone and iPad Pro. This technological breakthrough improves auto-focus and augmented reality features. As more and more companies use automotive LiDAR tech, the more the price drops – a real win-win for the steady growth of autonomous vehicles.

The future of MaaS is NOW

The final roll out of driverless vehicles has already begun. In Beijing you can catch one of 10 autonomous taxis which transport you to 8 destinations. It’s a small start, but a start nonetheless. In California 8 companies are offering a fully autonomous service to limited areas. Soon we can be transported from suburb to city – some say as soon as 2023!

Read more on MaaS and the speed at which it is set to hit our streets here.