The Landing Zone

We are shifting away from a “car-as-possession” society to a “car-as-service” society. And with this transformation comes radical adjustments to the automotive industry as a whole. Soon, gas stations will be obsolete, car rental companies will fall into antiquity, and parking garages will become empty skeletons of concrete.

It’s not a matter of why, it’s a matter of when.

And the answer to that is: soon. Very soon. Within the next decade, the shift toward autonomous vehicles will begin in earnest, and cars will no longer be things we own, but things we use. They’ll be electric-powered, self-parking, and able to be summoned whenever and wherever a user needs one. Need proof? Look no further than the amount of money and research Uber is throwing into their Advanced Technologies Group. They’ve seen the writing on the wall, and it’s paramount for their business to stay ahead of the curve. 

At Arcspring, we look for the opportunities new technologies present, especially when it comes to the 2nd and 3rd order consequences of these advances. For instance, instead of concentrating on building the next autonomous vehicle, we’re incredibly excited about the possibilities of parking garages.

Parking garages, you see, may no longer serve their originally intended purpose, but they can be adapted to keep up with the times. Generally, parking garages are large flat structures with a tremendous amount of acreage on their roofs. And when EVTOLS (see CityAirbus, Volocopter, or Uber Elevate for reference) become more commonplace, they will need somewhere large, flat, and urban to land. By repurposing these structures into landing zones, we can create destinations for passengers on EVTOLS filled with food and entertainment options. 

We can’t sit and wait for the future to land on us. The future is here, and we need to be ready for take-off.