HOW RIDE SHARING AND AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES IMPACT CUSTOMER USAGE AND RELIABILITY

The concept of Autonomous Vehicles ultimately generating an “order of magnitude” potential increase in the duty or usage cycle of a vehicle needs to be addressed in terms of impact on the reliability domain. Voice of the customer data indicates current passenger vehicle usage cycles are typically very low, 5% or less. Meaning, out of a 24 hour day, perhaps the average vehicle is actually driven only 70 minutes or less. Therefore, approximately 95% of the day, the vehicles lay dormant in an unused state. Within the context of future fully mature Autonomous Vehicle environment involving structured car sharing, the daily vehicle usage rate could grow to 95% or more.