Self-Driving and Beyond — The Future of the Car

Last time, we watched the electric car wake from a century-long sleep, and the heart of the automobile quietly being replaced amid Tesla’s challenge, the regulations of various nations, and the rise of China. But the turning of power to electricity is not the climax of this long story. For alongside electrification, a more fundamental question had arisen. It was a question that shook the very premise of the past hundred and twenty years — the premise that a car is something ‘a person drives.’

This series, which began with the dream of the horseless carriage, now reaches its final chapter. The car that drives itself, the car that stays connected, and the car that is not owned — where these three currents intersect, the future of the automobile and society is about to be drawn. It is at once a promise of a convenient and safe world, and the bearer of any number of hard questions humanity has never faced before. Without rushing to an answer, let us survey that scene.

The Car No One Drives

The phrase ‘self-driving’ is by no means uniform now. How much does the system handle, and from where does the person take over? To sort out that degree, a way of thinking that indicates stages is widely used for self-driving.

In general, the levels are arranged from a stage where the system merely assists driving and responsibility lies with the person, to a stage where under certain conditions the person can take their hands off the wheel, further to a stage where within a certain range the person is not involved in driving at all, and finally to a stage that requires no person in any situation. Technology that assists driving is already installed in many production cars, and some cars are said to have reached the stage where, under limited conditions, the system takes over driving. Furthermore, robotaxis with no person in the driver’s seat have appeared as services that actually carry passengers in specific cities. Google-affiliated Waymo is known as a representative example.

What the car no one drives promises is by no means small. Given that much of the world’s traffic accidents are said to stem from human carelessness, if a stable system took over driving it might reduce accidents. The freedom of mobility might widen to the elderly and to those who cannot drive. Yet to grasp that promise, it was not enough for a single car alone to grow clever.

The Connected Car

Another current supporting self-driving is the spread of the so-called connected car, the car that links to a communications network.

A car constantly connected to the outside receives information on congestion and accidents in real time, updates its maps, and at times rewrites the very functions of the car over the air. If each and every car shares the information it gains while driving, the whole flock of cars grows clever. Such connectivity not only raises the precision of self-driving but is also turning the car from a ‘machine complete the moment it is bought’ into a ‘product updated as it is used.’

Connection, however, has its shadows. That a car gathers vast data and keeps sending it means that when, where, and how we moved can be recorded and bundled together. The source of convenience becomes, at the same time, the source of anxiety over surveillance. Moreover, a car connected to the outside can also become a target of cyberattack. Apart from the safety of the power source or the software, the questions of who holds the data and what it is used for cling to the connected car.

The connected car turns the single object that is the automobile into part of a vast web of information. And a car that has become part of the web raises the question — perhaps it no longer even needs to be a tool owned by an individual.

From Owning to Using

For a long time the automobile was a symbol of wealth and freedom. To own one’s own car was, for many people, an achievement and the center of daily life too. Yet that very relationship of ‘owning’ is slowly being questioned anew.

This is the spread of car-sharing, ride-sharing, and the way of thinking called MaaS (Mobility as a Service), which grasps mobility itself as a service. MaaS is said to be the idea of linking various means of movement — trains, buses, taxis, shared cars — as a single service, so that one can use just as much as needed when needed. As more people live in cities and live without owning a car, mobility is shifting its center of gravity, little by little, from ‘something to own’ to ‘something to use.’

And where these currents intersect, an unavoidable hard question waits. When the car no one drives faces a moment in which an accident simply cannot be avoided, by what standard, and whom, should it decide to protect? To this kind of question, which philosophy has debated since ancient times, the designers of machines must now produce an answer. How does society confront a question that has no correct answer? When an accident occurs, who bears responsibility? Between convenience and safety, between freedom and privacy, we have yet to finish drawing many lines.

At the End of the Journey

We have traced this story, begun from the preposterous dream of the horseless carriage, all the way to here. A single invention became the common people’s feet through mass production, mirrored the character of each nation, honed the philosophy of manufacturing in postwar Japan, surmounted the oil crisis, was questioned for the price of safety and the environment, reorganized itself across borders, and now is about to have its power, its driving, and its ownership all questioned anew.

The automobile brought humanity an unprecedented freedom of movement. At the same time, it took many lives in accidents, fouled the air, and reshaped the form of cities. Light and shadow always dwelt together within one and the same car. To us, who have gazed at both sides, it is not possible to foretell what the future will become. Whether self-driving fulfills its promise, whether the relationship of ownership truly fades, when the sound of the internal combustion engine will fall silent — that hangs on what choices we go on to pile up from here.

What is certain is that the car has remained not a mere means of movement, but a mirror reflecting the dreams and contradictions of its age. The next time you ride in a car, or walk through town without owning one, if you might remember that beyond that single step this hundred-and-twenty-year story quietly continues, there could be no greater joy. To all the readers who have kept company with us on this long journey, we offer our heartfelt thanks.

【The Automobile: How the Car Changed the World — End】