Everywhere in the world, people want to be able to move around quickly, safely and cheaply.

We are now seeing rapid adoption of electric cars in China, including small electric vehicles (EVs) that are dramatically cheaper than what new cars used to cost.

Sales of electric two- and three-wheelers are already growing exponentially in much of the world.

Families that were previously only able to afford a used combustion engine vehicle are now buying new EVs, and those that used two-wheelers are stepping up to cars.

We see the robotaxi disruption playing out in a similar manner around the world-with fleets first being deployed in the large urban areas where companies developing autonomous electric vehicles (A-EVs) are located (like San Francisco and Shanghai) and then spreading to other areas.

Explore the evidence...

• The Transport-as-a-Service (TaaS) disruption will be a global disruption. The technology adoption lifecycle suggests that there will be innovators, early adopters, mainstream adopters, late adopters and laggards. If one country, state or city bans or fails to approve A-EVs (autonomous vehicles) the disruption will still happen, but in another country, state or city.
  • To learn more about Transport-as-a-Service, and our executive summary of how the transportation disruption will play out, read p7 of our Rethinking Transportation report.
  • To read more about the speed and extent of adoption, read 27-30 of our Rethinking Transportation report.
• In cities where population density and real estate prices are high (e.g., New York, San Francisco, Boston, Singapore, London) TaaS adoption will likely proceed fastest, creating a virtuous cycle of more availability of TaaS vehicles, lower costs, higher quality of service, quicker pick-ups and faster rides that will increase usage from existing users and attract even more new users globally.
  • To learn more about how EVs and the TaaS disruption will reach critical mass and a tipping point globally, read p22-25 of our report Rethinking Transportation.
• To learn more about previous disruptions in the transport sector, and the implications for choices made by global nations, read our blog post.
• To learn more about policy that decision-makers should be putting in place with regards to the transport disruption, read our blog post.

Witness the transformation

The disruption of the transport sector by emerging technologies, A-EVs and TaaS, is inevitable. The disruption will be decentralized, and will drastically change the transportation structures of nations across the globe.

Choosing TaaS over independently owned vehicles will lead to a reduction in costs of up to 10 times. We know of no other market where a cost differential of up to 10 times has not led to a global disruption.

Learn more about the disruption of transportation.

Published on: 12/07/23