Cruise, which I wrote about earlier this year, has just announced that its autonomous taxi service will soon be available to the general public 24 hours a day, across all of San Francisco. Initially the service was only available between 11PM and 5AM (when traffic volumes are lower), and in certain parts of the city. It was also free to use. In total, the company now has about 300 AVs operating across San Francisco, Austin, and Phoenix. And it has been charging for rides since June of this year.
Cruise, which I wrote about earlier this year, has just announced that its autonomous taxi service will soon be available to the general public 24 hours a day, across all of San Francisco. Initially the service was only available between 11PM and 5AM (when traffic volumes are lower), and in certain parts of the city. It was also free to use. In total, the company now has about 300 AVs operating across San Francisco, Austin, and Phoenix. And it has been charging for rides since June of this year.
Bob Lutz is a former vice chairman and head of product development at General Motors. Recently, he had this to say about the future of the auto industry.
Here are a couple of powerful snippets:
It saddens me to say it, but we are approaching the end of the automotive era.
The auto industry is on an accelerating change curve. For hundreds of years, the horse was the prime mover of humans and for the past 120 years it has been the automobile.
Now we are approaching the end of the line for the automobile because travel will be in standardized modules.
Everyone will have five years to get their car off the road or sell it for scrap or trade it on a module.
Bob is 85 years old. This is somebody who spent his entire life in the auto industry telling us that the old model is now done.
It reinforces something that I wrote about here, where the “end of the automotive era” was pegged at around 2021.
And it is part of the mental model that I have started relying on today for decision making.
Bob Lutz is a former vice chairman and head of product development at General Motors. Recently, he had this to say about the future of the auto industry.
Here are a couple of powerful snippets:
It saddens me to say it, but we are approaching the end of the automotive era.
The auto industry is on an accelerating change curve. For hundreds of years, the horse was the prime mover of humans and for the past 120 years it has been the automobile.
Now we are approaching the end of the line for the automobile because travel will be in standardized modules.
Everyone will have five years to get their car off the road or sell it for scrap or trade it on a module.
Bob is 85 years old. This is somebody who spent his entire life in the auto industry telling us that the old model is now done.
It reinforces something that I wrote about here, where the “end of the automotive era” was pegged at around 2021.
And it is part of the mental model that I have started relying on today for decision making.
Well, just like that, the unofficial end of summer. Labor Day weekend. But I agree with Shawn Micallef: “
Defy the crowd and keep enjoying summer
.” There are still weeks of it left.
But given that it is Labor Day weekend, here are two things to think about.
The first is a Financial Times article by Lawrence Summers where he argues that America needs unions more than ever and that, indeed, the central issue of American politics today is the “economic security of the middle class.”
Here is an excerpt that speaks to declining bargaining power on the part of labor:
“But I suspect the most important factor explaining what is happening is that the bargaining power of employers has increased and that of workers has decreased. Bargaining power depends on alternative options. Technology has given employers more scope for replacing Americans with foreign workers, or with technology, or by drawing on the gig economy. So their leverage to hold down wages has increased.”
It’s also worth mentioning that only about 6.4% of private sector workers in the U.S. are in a union today. This is a decline of almost two-thirds since the 1970s and is a good segue into the second thought of this post.
Two years ago Fred Wilson wrote a post on his blog (which he reblogged today) where he argued that “labor needs a mechanism to obtain market power as a counterbalance to the excesses of markets and capitalism.”
But, that this mechanism needs a refresh. He calls it Union 2.0.
“However, like all bureaucratic institutions, the “Union” mechanism appears anachronistic sitting here in the second decade of the 21st century. We are witnessing the sustained unwinding of 19th and 20th century institutions that were built at a time when transaction and communications costs were high and the overhead of bureaucracy and institutional inertia were costs that were unavoidable.”
This makes perfect sense to me.
At the same time, we can’t forget – and this is how Summers ends his article – that, today, “the most valuable companies are the Apples and the Amazons rather than the General Motors and the General Electrics.”
That tells me that what may have worked in the past will likely not work in the future.
But given that it is Labor Day weekend, here are two things to think about.
The first is a Financial Times article by Lawrence Summers where he argues that America needs unions more than ever and that, indeed, the central issue of American politics today is the “economic security of the middle class.”
Here is an excerpt that speaks to declining bargaining power on the part of labor:
“But I suspect the most important factor explaining what is happening is that the bargaining power of employers has increased and that of workers has decreased. Bargaining power depends on alternative options. Technology has given employers more scope for replacing Americans with foreign workers, or with technology, or by drawing on the gig economy. So their leverage to hold down wages has increased.”
It’s also worth mentioning that only about 6.4% of private sector workers in the U.S. are in a union today. This is a decline of almost two-thirds since the 1970s and is a good segue into the second thought of this post.
Two years ago Fred Wilson wrote a post on his blog (which he reblogged today) where he argued that “labor needs a mechanism to obtain market power as a counterbalance to the excesses of markets and capitalism.”
But, that this mechanism needs a refresh. He calls it Union 2.0.
“However, like all bureaucratic institutions, the “Union” mechanism appears anachronistic sitting here in the second decade of the 21st century. We are witnessing the sustained unwinding of 19th and 20th century institutions that were built at a time when transaction and communications costs were high and the overhead of bureaucracy and institutional inertia were costs that were unavoidable.”
This makes perfect sense to me.
At the same time, we can’t forget – and this is how Summers ends his article – that, today, “the most valuable companies are the Apples and the Amazons rather than the General Motors and the General Electrics.”
That tells me that what may have worked in the past will likely not work in the future.
