Will the ‘Noddy pod’ spell the end of the car industry & change cities forever?

“Will Google’s self-driving pods spell the end of the road for car ownership?” John Naughton asks in The Observer. It is a good question. And there’s a fascinating answer to match. Consider this:

–        Google has a stake in Uber, a company that enables you to hail a nearby car by smartphone.

–        The little ‘Noddy’ pods that Google rolled out last week can be summoned by smartphone, give you a human driver-less ride to where you want to go, and should be seen as a service, not a possession. In the future, no one will (theoretically, in the world according to Google) own a pod, they will just hail the nearest one. This will change the whole concept of road-planning, the car industry, drivers license tests and urban congestion. In fact, it will change cities in a way that last happened when they started to plan for motorized transport, not horses.

Has Google seen the future? Perhaps. It’s certainly labouring to make it possible.

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life”
– Jack Kerouac