Reinventing Production Food Systems Energy and Transportation Information and Communications Materials and Resources
There’s no need to re-invent the wheel, RethinkX sums it up with clarity above all:
To understand where we’re at, how we got here and how we can create a healthier and more prosperous co-existence, we refer to the summation of RethinkX:
Transport will be disrupted in myriad ways (details are laid out in our Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030 report).
TaaS (shared A-EVs hailed on demand) will rapidly replace the model of individual car ownership and with it the combustion engine. Electric vehicles (trucks, vans, buses, and cars) can drive half a million miles (soon to be one million) as opposed to around 140,000 miles for ICE vehicles. This means fleets will also have to go electric because the per-mile cost of EVs is one third (soon to be one sixth) the cost of ICE transportation in high-utilization models.
Companies like Amazon and Fedex will have no choice but to quickly replace their whole fleets with electric trucks and vans for purely economic reasons.
As human drivers are replaced, congestion will ease and the possibility of integrating other electric forms of transport (scooters, drones, and bikes) will emerge. Together, these disruptions will deliver a transportation system 10x cheaper and far more efficient than the one it replaces. As the speed of transport improves in congested areas, this new system will create possibilities to change where we live and work, transforming the layout of cities and towns. Its impact will
ripple out across trains, logistics, aviation, oil, climate change, and geopolitics. Just like the ICE car did 100 years before them, new modes of transportation will restructure culture, entertainment, and commerce.