The Future...Predictions----from America

Submitted: Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 10:29
ThreadID: 137589 Views:5645 Replies:17 FollowUps:9
This Thread has been Archived
The Future

Auto repair shops will go away.

A gasoline engine has 20,000 individual parts. An electrical motor has 20. Electric cars are sold with lifetime guarantees and are only repaired by dealers. It takes only 10 minutes to remove and replace an electric motor. Faulty electric motors are not repaired in the dealership but are sent to a regional repair shop that repairs them with robots. Your electric motor malfunction light goes on, so you drive up to what looks like a Jiffy-auto wash, and your car is towed through while you have a cup of coffee and out comes your car with a new electric motor!

Gas stations will go away. Parking meters will be replaced by meters that dispense electricity. Companies will install electrical recharging stations; in fact, they've already started. You can find them at select Dunkin Donuts locations.

Most (the smart) major auto manufacturers have already designated money to start building new plants that only build electric cars.

Coal industries will go away. Gasoline/oil companies will go away. Drilling for oil will stop. So say goodbye to OPEC!

Homes will produce and store more electrical energy during the day and then they use and will sell it back to the grid. The grid stores it and dispenses it to industries that are high electricity users. Has anybody seen the Tesla roof?

A baby of today will only see personal cars in museums.

The FUTURE is approaching faster than most of us can handle.

In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt. Who would have thought of that ever happening?

What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 5-10 years and, most people don't see it coming.

Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later, you would never take pictures on film again? With today's smart phones, who even has a camera these days?

Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore's law. So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a time, before it became way superior and became mainstream in only a few short years. It will now happen again (but much faster) with Artificial Intelligence, health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs.

Forget the book, 'Future Shock', welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution

Software has disrupted and will continue to disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.

UBER is just a software tool, they don't own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world!

Ask any taxi driver if they saw that coming.

Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don't own any properties. Ask Hilton Hotels if they saw that coming.

Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go-player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected.

In the USA, young lawyers already don't get jobs. Because of IBM's Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for right now, the basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So, if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% fewer lawyers in the future, (what a thought!) only omniscient specialists will remain.

Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, its 4 times more accurate than human nurses.

Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.

Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars are already here. In the next 2 years, the entire industry will start to be disrupted. You won't want to own a car anymore as you will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it you will only pay for the driven distance and you can be productive while driving. The very young children of today will never get a driver's license and will never own a car.

This will change our cities, because we will need 90-95% fewer cars. We can transform former parking spaces into parks.

1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide including distracted or drunk driving. We now have one accident every 60,000 miles; with autonomous driving that will drop to 1 accident in 6 million miles. That will save a million lives plus worldwide each year.

Most traditional car companies will doubtless become bankrupt. Traditional car companies will try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels.

Look at what Volvo is doing right now; no more internal combustion engines in their vehicles starting this year with the 2019 models, using all electric or hybrid only, with the intent of phasing out hybrid models.

Many engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; are completely terrified of Tesla and so they should be. Look at all the companies offering all electric vehicles. That was unheard of, only a few years ago.

Insurance companies will have massive trouble because, without accidents, the costs will become cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.

Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move farther away to live in a more beautiful or affordable neighborhood.

Electric cars will become mainstream about 2030. Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run on electricity. Cities will have much cleaner air as well. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean.

Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can now see the burgeoning impact.

And it's just getting ramped up.

Fossil energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid to prevent competition from home solar installations, but that simply cannot continue - technology will take care of that strategy.

Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There are companies who will build a medical device (called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and you breath into it. It then analyses 54 bio-markers that will identify nearly any Disease. There are dozens of phone apps out there right now for health purposes.

WELCOME TO TOMORROW it actually arrived a few years ago.
Back Expand Un-Read 5

Reply By: Gerard S - Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 11:17

Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 11:17
The dumbing down of the masses has begun. New generations become more and more helpless, confined to cities and computerised support systems. I'll be keeping my diesel 4WD, caravan and drivers licence to get away from it all. Will Camerons corner and the CSR have charging points....I hope not!
AnswerID: 622792

Reply By: tazbaz - Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 12:10

Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 12:10
Who knows? - no-one! The future is intrinsically unknowable. One thing is for sure though - forecasts are invariably wrong.
AnswerID: 622793

Reply By: Rangiephil - Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 12:14

Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 12:14
One thing about the future is that predictions are usually wrong.
How about "peak oil" we would run out by now. I remember about 2007 there were predictions of $3 per litre petrol.
How about polar bears are dying? There is now estimated to be 3 times the population of 2005.
How about New York under water by 2015?
How about self driving cars? Oops they kill too many. They also rely on accurate GPS maps, as they say as they drive into a lake.
Also a hybrid vehicle has an ICE , that's why it is called a hybrid. Many experts believe that this is where the market is headed rather than pure EVs.
I see the next big struggle is to rein in technology by controlling Google,Facebook, Uber etc. The OZ government has done a great thing in making it compulsory to allow translation of encrypted transmissions.
BTW a Tesla has about 20000 individual batteries, any of which can fail.
Regards Philip A
AnswerID: 622794

Reply By: RMD - Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 12:22

Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 12:22
Havne't worked on a gasoline engine, but a v8 petrol engine doesn't have anywhere near 20,000 parts. Even with the ancillaries and an auto box behind it there isn't that many parts, far less in fact.
Dunkin Do nut store.

If we have autonomous cars and no crashes then we better get building highrise battery accomodation for the increase in population caused by less crashes.
Deaths in city roads will increase because, no sound means can't hear them coming and the low clearance of electric vehicles combined with significant weight means most will be killed if they go under.

How do plumbers, electrician, police and hspital staff etc etc, work while commuting? You cannot have people moving further away to live, as the amenity of those areas will soon be erased and everywhere will be the same as everywhere else. Mildura is just a suburb of Melbourne.
More mining will have to be done on the environment to supply materials for the multi millions of batteries required to store ANY electricity. Coal will still have to be used for a longtime, only thinking people realize this fact. We will have to travel through forests of solar farms to go anywhere.

I presume people will just love the blood scan thingo probing them for red cordial to test.

For the last 30 years, Australians have been raised as Americans, so now they dress, think, look, act, speak, have tattoos and rings etc and are overweight just like the Yankees they idolise. They won't have to adjust at all, they will just blend into the new world without knowing they are being had.
AnswerID: 622795

Follow Up By: garrycol - Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 12:37

Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 12:37
Definitely no where near 20,000 parts in an engine - maybe 20,000 individual bits in an entire car.
0
FollowupID: 895834

Reply By: Michael H9 - Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 13:06

Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 13:06
My local Supercheap Autos has two electric car charging stations near the front door. I've never seen a car in them.
AnswerID: 622796

Reply By: tazbaz - Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 13:15

Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 13:15
Remember the paperless office predicted in the 1980's. Hasn't happened thirty years on
AnswerID: 622797

Reply By: Shaker - Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 13:27

Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 13:27
Looks like we’ll have a generation of fat electric vehicle drivers!
AnswerID: 622798

Reply By: Member - Outback Gazz - Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 14:06

Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 14:06
Well at least "my" ride to the cemetery in an electric hearse will be a quiet one !!
AnswerID: 622800

Reply By: batsy - Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 15:56

Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 15:56
Jeez and I was just starting to feel really good too with CHRISTMAS & all........guess I'll have to break out another bottle of Scotch....by the way will Scotch still be available when all this happens ? Don't answer..I don't want to know.

Happy ? CHRISTMAS to one & all.

Cheers
Batsy
Every day vertical above ground is a bonus.

Member
My Profile  My Blog  Send Message

AnswerID: 622801

Reply By: Member -Pinko (NSW) - Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 16:10

Monday, Dec 24, 2018 at 16:10
At Park Beach Plaza parking station Coffs Harbour there are a number of Tesla rechargers and none of our family have ever seen them being used.
Living is a journey,it depends on where you go !
VKS 737 mobile 0049 selcall 0049

Member
My Profile  My Position  Send Message

AnswerID: 622802

Follow Up By: Candace S. - Saturday, Dec 29, 2018 at 13:49

Saturday, Dec 29, 2018 at 13:49
And I see Teslas pretty much every day, where I live. I guess everything's relative, eh? :)
1
FollowupID: 895902

Follow Up By: Ron N - Saturday, Dec 29, 2018 at 22:34

Saturday, Dec 29, 2018 at 22:34
There's a very keen bunch of people here in W.A. who have a branch of the Electric Vehicle Association of Australia. Sort of like a version of the RAC for electric vehicle owners.

They had a display at the Hyde Park Fair last Summer, and there was one very enthusiastic (and obviously very wealthy) lady who owned a Tesla.
She told me how they drove to the East Coast and back in it, with no problems.

Another young bloke had a totally revamped Mazda MX-5 sports car converted into electric drive. This is apparently quite a common conversion - but it still runs into $20,000 to $30,000, plus the cost of buying the MX-5 and reconditioning it.

To my way of thinking, I'm certainly not going to spend $170,000 on a Tesla - nor even $20,000 or $30,000 on an electric conversion, just to avoid the cost of petrol or diesel.
Because the bottom line is, even if you're doing 50,000kms a year, the cost of your fuel is still only around $5,000 to $7,000 a year - and it's currently getting a lot lower cost.

Add in the fact that fuel is a sizeable tax deduction for many vehicle owners, and the cost is a lot less.
Then there's the "range fear" of owning an electric vehicle. The battery goes flat, and you're effectively stranded - unless someone just happens to come past, carrying a genset.

So, on that basis, it will take a long time for electric vehicles to become highly competitive, and offer the level of convenience that IC engine-powered vehicles do.

And one thing you can be sure of - oil companies and automotive companies will be fighting back with everything in their armoury to ensure that IC engines stay in use, as long as they offer some advantages to both vehicle owners, as well as the manufacturers.

Mazda are typical, they reckon there's a lot of life left in the IC engine - and they still reckon that 95% of their product offering, will still have an IC engine, in 2030.

Cheers, Ron.
0
FollowupID: 895913

Follow Up By: Candace S. - Wednesday, Jan 09, 2019 at 13:45

Wednesday, Jan 09, 2019 at 13:45
My impression is that, far from fighting electric and hybrid drivetrains, manufacturers are embracing them. Of course, lack of consumer acceptance could result in them missing their lofty goals.

There may be some public backlash in the near future. Especially if electric car battery performance and prices don't improve while government mandates loom.

The pursuit of solid state battery technology
1
FollowupID: 896229

Reply By: Member - Harry C - Tuesday, Dec 25, 2018 at 06:25

Tuesday, Dec 25, 2018 at 06:25
All part of the brain washing process. These things only happen if you let them.
The windscreen is a travelling picture show

Lifetime Member
My Profile  Send Message

AnswerID: 622807

Reply By: Alloy c/t - Tuesday, Dec 25, 2018 at 08:29

Tuesday, Dec 25, 2018 at 08:29
So no more Oil or OPEC .. so where oh where will the Plastic that is an integral part of yes an electric vehicle come from ..No Oil equals no Plastics equals no Electrics ...Even a 'synthetic' Oil requires the chemicals derived from good old 'Black Gold' - 'Texas Tea' ...
AnswerID: 622809

Follow Up By: 9900Eagle - Tuesday, Dec 25, 2018 at 08:50

Tuesday, Dec 25, 2018 at 08:50
Great thing about plastics and oil. Out of sight out of mind.

2
FollowupID: 895839

Follow Up By: Les - PK Ranger - Tuesday, Dec 25, 2018 at 11:44

Tuesday, Dec 25, 2018 at 11:44
I'm hoping there will be a day when gathering up all this was will be economically viable, after all every single piece of plastic ever made still exists for at least 500 years.

Another article with startling figures.

What is a concern is recycling is becoming a problem, or rather lack of it in a meaningful sense.
In recent times with China saying it can't handle the volumes of plastic taken from Worldwide (who knew China took all our old PET bottle, tetra containers, etc and recycled it ??) they stopped taking it from a lot of countries (inc Australia), so most of our kerbside recycling is for naught as it is being put into landfill.

Micro plastic pollution is probably the hidden factor in the pollution problem.
When every bit of plastic is pummeled down fine enough, it gets into the food chain, so humans are gradually poisoning themselves as well as every other species on the planet.

What's the answer, or is it too late anyway ?
Who knows really, but there is an awful lot of plastic in the World now, including particles of the very first plastics ever made, whether it is something else recycled, as waste buried or in the environment, or micro particles free or inside all animal species on Earth.
0
FollowupID: 895842

Reply By: rumpig - Tuesday, Dec 25, 2018 at 12:28

Tuesday, Dec 25, 2018 at 12:28
I wonder if the Americans making these predictions, ever predicted Trump being thier President one day
AnswerID: 622815

Reply By: Ron N - Wednesday, Dec 26, 2018 at 16:04

Wednesday, Dec 26, 2018 at 16:04
I can recall a few predictions made in the early 20th to late 20th century, that never came true.

1. In the early 1900's a prediction was made, that by 1950, the world would be in semi-darkness from all the soot from oil lamps - and the world would be 4 feet (1.2M) deep in horse manure.

2. In the 1950's, it was predicted that by year 2000, robots would do all our housework and labour intensive jobs, so we would all have nothing to do.

None of those predictions came true, because they couldn't take into account the progress of inventions, and technological and social developments of the future.

I have a 1975 copy of the (American) Peoples Almanac (by Wallechinsky & Wallace), that I bought in a secondhand bookstore about 1980, for $5.

It has a chapter full of predictions - by experts in their field - from soothsayers to scientists.
Hardly a single one of them has come true, and not a single one of them predicted the Internet.
I get a regular laugh, re-reading this chapter of the book.

Cheers, Ron.
AnswerID: 622828

Follow Up By: Allan B (Sunshine Coast) - Wednesday, Dec 26, 2018 at 19:19

Wednesday, Dec 26, 2018 at 19:19
.
Ron, ......."and the world would be 4 feet (1.2M) deep in horse manure."

Maybe not the world, but perhaps true for The White House?
Cheers
Allan

Member
My Profile  My Blog  Send Message

2
FollowupID: 895863

Follow Up By: Frank P (NSW) - Wednesday, Dec 26, 2018 at 21:39

Wednesday, Dec 26, 2018 at 21:39
And perhaps for the hill a little closer to home :-)
FrankP

Lifetime Member
My Profile  My Blog  My Position  Send Message
Moderator

1
FollowupID: 895865

Reply By: Les - PK Ranger - Wednesday, Dec 26, 2018 at 18:54

Wednesday, Dec 26, 2018 at 18:54
I believe a lot of what is in that section Automomous cars.
I took the sons Tesla X for a drive today, and got him to film a little of the autonomous driving mode.



This isn't the full autonomous package (not yet legal in Australia), but does drive the vehicle autonomously using the sensors and cameras in many situations.
It reads road markings, and can steer, brake for other vehicles, change lanes by just using the indicator, hold at the lights and accelerate when the vehicle in front moves, it will brake for obstacles or things that move in the way like pedestrians, cyclists, animals etc, and objects on a road.
It requires you to start it by lightly holding the steering wheel for a few seconds, and occasionally doing the same when it is moving along.

My IT son predicts that once the full autonomous modes are brought in, you could drive to work, or rather be driven, then if desired allow your vehicle to go into a pool and move off to pick up a 'fare' to move them where they are going, do this all day with charges as required, and return at a set time to pick you up from work and take you home.

Taxis now like the hybrid Camrys, don't even get turned off nowadays !!
They work a few shifts continuously with different drivers, so when this sort of technology does come in it reliably, it will be the end of that line of work.

Trucks too will be able to do this, Tesla already have one, or prototype, so truck drivers will no longer be needed mainstream, just specialised ones I guess.

Many of the Pilbara ore trains recently went autonomous, operated from a control room in Perth.
Pretty sure a lot of ore trucks on the big mine sites are also at that level now or very soon.

In a decade the changes will be amazing, let alone another 2 or 3 decades.
AnswerID: 622830

Reply By: Bob Y. - Qld - Thursday, Dec 27, 2018 at 07:42

Thursday, Dec 27, 2018 at 07:42
Chester Gould, author of "Dick Tracy", got more predictions for the future correct than anyone!



Bob

Seen it all, Done it all.
Can't remember most of it.

Lifetime Member
My Profile  My Blog  My Position  Send Message

AnswerID: 622831

Follow Up By: Alloy c/t - Thursday, Dec 27, 2018 at 10:55

Thursday, Dec 27, 2018 at 10:55
Jules Vern , Submarines and Scuba , Drilling to the centre of the Earth [ geothermal power generation ] Rockets to the Moon , Radio + TV etc etc . Even his 'Nautilus' submarine was powered by a 'mystical' force generating electricity..nuclear power ....
1
FollowupID: 895869

Reply By: Candace S. - Saturday, Dec 29, 2018 at 13:54

Saturday, Dec 29, 2018 at 13:54
Speaking of electric vehicles...fancy an electric motorhome, anyone? A bit limited in several ways, but things do evolve...

"Britz Campervans are proud to launch our brand new, fully electric campervan; the Britz eVolve. The eVolve is revolutionising your Kiwi roadtrip whilst driving towards a greener future, with a range of up to 120km. The camper is available for travel for Auckland to Auckland hires from 17th December, 2018, and for travel Queenstown to Queenstown from 7th January 2019."

Britz Evolve EV
AnswerID: 622869

Sponsored Links