Steve Kovach January 08, 2016 at 12:47PM
This is the Arcimoto SRK, a street-legal, all-electric trike that can go up to 80 miles per hour:
The SRK may look like a goofy electric scooter thing, but it could be a lot closer to what many cars on the road look like once autonomous vehicles are common. Part of the reason why your car is so big, heavy, and expensive is because car companies have to pack in a ton of safety features.
But that won't be the case once all cars on the road are autonomous, Fittipaldi told me. Since there won't be any room for human error, vehicles won't need to be built to withstand an impact from an SUV, a tree, or whatever else. That gives car makers the opportunity to mass produce light, efficient, and cheap vehicles more people can afford. (The SRK may not be autonomous yet, but it'll only cost $12,000 when it goes on sale at the end of this year.)
I never really thought about it that way, but what Fittipaldi told me is deeply profound. I already knew the potential for self-driving cars to reduce the epidemic of fatalities caused by automobiles, but I didn't think that it could spur a change in car design, too, by making transportation much more affordable.
Safe. Affordable. Good for the environment. Reduced congestion in cities. Autonomous driving has incredible potential.
So don't be surprised if the car you buy in the future looks less like a Tesla and more like Arcimoto SRK.
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I just learned something profound about the future of transportation from Business Insider: Steve Kovach
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