Summary
Phase 1:
‘Cars when you want it, Cars where you want it’
End User:
Individuals
Individuals will be able to use a car when and
where they want it. The GPS receiver in the user’s phone will allow Google to
send its service (self-driving car) to the user where they need it. This
eliminates the requirement of the car ownership while it still gives the
flexibility of using the vehicle when and where people want to use it. This
service will be limited to a few cities where the service can be implemented
based on the current government regulation.
This service also empowers physically disabled
individuals by enabling them with mobility in the same way as any other
individual.
Phase 2:
‘Travel and explore places like never before’
End User:
Travel/Tour Industry, Companies
This will disrupt the travel industry by
providing a highly optimized end to end travel solution. The vehicle will have
a dashboard that can display every known and possible point of information that
can add value for the travel experience. Close knit integration with Google’s
other services such as Google Search, Google Hotels, Google Flights, Google
Places, Google Traffic, Google Goggles, Google Voice, etc. will not only make
the travel experience much better but also optimize the trip to make it the
most efficient one.
Integration with Google wallet will also make the
service cash-free.
Phase 3 :
‘Your vehicle, customized for you’
End User:
Individuals
For individuals and families who would own the
self-driving car will be able to have a seamless integration with their work as
they move between their houses, their work place and while they travel in the
car. This will also provide a different kind of security as authentication will
be managed primarily by the individual’s Google account. All the features in
the previous phases will be present in this phase as well and there will be
incremental services.
Phase 4 :
‘Redesign the way people travel.
Introduce ‘Self- flying passenger pods’ and ‘Self-navigating boats’
End User: Individuals/Governments
The 3D positioning ability of the Google Earth
will allow Google to locate and navigate ‘flying objects’ (passenger
helicopters, flying cars). This extrapolation can also be extended to
self-navigating boats.
This can completely change the way travel is
perceived in many countries where there’s no basic transport infrastructure
such as roads.
A clear
and deeper description of the service:
Phase 1 :
‘Cars when you want it, Cars where you want it’
End User:
Individuals
This
phase will include the basic offering of the service using most of the other
offerings that Google already has. Lets take an example to explain a basic use
case.
John Smith
(an user) has to go from his house at Cambridge, MA to his company headquarters
in Seattle on Thursday. He can look up for all the possible options using
Google maps for these conditions. This will also include flight and hotel
suggestion using Google’s services such as ‘Google Flights’ and ‘Google
Hotels’. Based on the most suited result, John Smith can select one of the
results and authorize his Google account to make payment using his ‘Google
wallet’ account. With this, John Smith will have his self-driving car outside
his house to take him to the airport at the right time. Bluetooth or NFC
technology available in his phone can be used to authenticate him when he
boards his vehicle. The car will take the most efficient route based on ‘Google
traffic’. Based on the arrival time of his plane, Google can send another
self-driving car at the Seattle airport and take him to the hotel that was
booked for him.
The
self-driving cars will be managed by a car rental service company such as Uber.
Uber is the closest to providing similar service as of now. So they understand
this business very well. Google has already invested in Uber ($258 million) for
7% stake in the company. This strategic alliance makes Uber a great fit to
manage the self-driving car rental business that is required in phase one.
Phase 2:
‘Travel and explore places like never before’
End User:
Travel/Tour Providers, Companies
Travel and tour providers will see a disruption
with this phase. A well-coordinated and organized travel plan can be made and
executed with Google’s self-driving car. Let’s take a use case to explain this
further.
John Smith wants to go from Boston to Niagara
Falls with his family. He can include some or all of his family members in the
plan he makes on Google Maps using Google’s private social network - ‘circles’
in Google plus. He can start his journey at the time he chooses and all along
the way his dashboard can tell him all he wants to know about the places around
him by using Google’s own services such as ‘ Google Voice’, ‘ Google Local’ and
other third party services such as ‘Wikipedia’ and ‘Lonely Planet’.
Note that this phase is an incremental offering
on top of the offering of the first phase.
Phase 3 :
‘Your vehicle, customized for you’
End User:
Individuals
This phase brings along a very high level of
personalization that would come from owning a self-driving car. Let’s use a
specific use case to see its implementation.
John Smith’s self-driving car alerts him on his
phone that he should leave for office at 7:43 AM today to avoid any delay due
to traffic and reach his office for his 8:30 AM meeting. He hasn’t completed
his work that he started on his home computer so now he can continue to work
from where he left on his home computer in the dashboard of the car (with
keyboard integration).
This phase will also include new agreements with
car insurance companies and financing companies to abide by the required rules
that would be mandated by the government.
Phase 4:
‘Redesign the way people travel.
Introduce ‘Self- flying passenger light planes’ and ‘Self-navigating boats’
End User:
Individuals/Governments
This
phase will essentially change the perception of travel altogether. There are
lots of attributes that will come into play before this phase is implemented.
New laws, among everything else (technological change) will have to be drafted
to set this up. With self-flying light pods/helicopters, there will not be a
need of traditional travel infrastructure such as roads, particularly at places
where there are no roads to begin with.
This
phase will also demand a number of advancements in the technology. Specially
designed flying pods and boats will be a technology feat in itself. There are
quite a few options now but getting to a point where it can be used
commercially will be difficult.
This
phase will also require changes in the current regulations and also create a
few of them to address the new system that this phase will create.
An
Analysis of the Value That Will Be Generated for Various Stakeholders in the
Ecosystem
The Google self-driving car in its ecosystem is the center of a
two-side platform with multiple technology/service providers on each side. It
creates values and positive impacts to each of the stakeholders along with potential risks and negative influences.
We have selected three key stakeholders on both demand side and supply side and
have analyzed their values and potential risks.
External Value Analysis -- Demand Side
1. End Consumers --
Individuals, Families, Corporations / Campus Shuttles
Positive
Things
- By
providing self-driving car rental service, Google brings safer, more efficient
travel experience to individuals.
- Fewer road accidents, due to an autonomous system's
increased reliability and faster reaction time compared to human drivers
- Reduction of
parking scarcity, as cars could drop off passengers, park far away where space
is not scarce, and return as needed to pick up passengers.
- Removal of
constraints on occupants' state – in an autonomous car, it would not matter if
the occupants were under age, blind, distracted, intoxicated, or otherwise
impaired.
Negative Things
- This new
product will enforce the fact that humans will have heavier reliance on
machines. Thus human senses may be used to a lesser extent.
2. Automotive OEMs (Commercial Car Manufacturers)
Positive Things
- The next level of car technologies will be
developed to accommodate the new self-driving function.
- While the
big car companies are doing prototypes of advanced cars for themselves, Google
takes care the software research and development that will reduce the R&D
cost for manufacturing cars in future.
Negative Things /
Risks
- It takes time for customers to adopt and purchase
after the revolutionary car models are introduced to the market.
- The
learning curve of manufacturing cars with new specifications will also be
steeper than before.
3. Travel Service Providers (Tour providers/
Travel Companies)
Positive Things
- With less reliance on human factors, the travel
services company can provide 24 *7 services.
- The model
of delivering service becomes highly scalable with fewer operations and fewer
human involved factors.
Negative Things
- The
highly automated solutions reduce job opportunities as drivers and providers of
other basic services.
- It will reduce the likelihood to have human
interaction in the service providing process, which may not fully cover all the
potential customer needs and create the best user experiences.
External Value Analysis B -- Supply Side:
1. Government / Regulation Solutions
Positive Things
The
technology will require government to redesign the regulation and to find new
solutions, which will reduce cost and increase efficiency. Here are a few
example of the positive value the new technology will bring to government:
- Increase
roadway capacity and reduced traffic congestion, and the ability to better
manage traffic flow.
- Higher speed
limit for autonomous cars.
- Reduction of
space required for vehicle parking.
- Reduction in
the need for traffic police and vehicle insurance.
- Reduction of
physical road signage – autonomous cars could receive necessary communication
electronically (although physical signs may still be required for any human
drivers).
Negative Things
- It will
take long time and great amount of effort for governments to change and impose new transportation
regulations. The self-driving cars will increase the complexity of scenarios,
which would bring challenges for government to execute the new transportation
regulations.
2. Hardware Components (Sensor, etc.) Providers
Positive Things
- The new
car technologies create great market demand for all different hardware
components, such as sensors, GPS receivers, etc.
- It will create
more job opportunities for the whole industry.
Negative Things
- With more
hardware components created and more out-of-date hardware components replaced,
there will be more e-waste generated.
3. Technology
provider for navigation / high speed computing / seamless connectivity
solutions
Positive Things:
- Because
of the huge market opportunity, there will be a concentrated effort from
various companies in the space to develop more commercialized technology.
- This
commercialization will also create more job opportunities.
Negative things:
- The advanced technology requirement increases
the barriers to entry in the market for entrepreneurs.
A
Management Discussion of How To Actually Roll Out the Implementation
Implementing this innovation into the ecosystem
would involve a step wise integration of the attributes into the ecosystem.
With the vision in place, I would get started with getting more approvals from
states so that self-driving cars can be driven in more states. A lot of
government regulations required for this product are non-existent. So helping
states/regulators come up with the rules would also be very important and would
eventually fasten the process as well. Getting the product even better in what
it claims to do is another area where Google’s primary focus should be. In the
words of an engineering lead at Google, Chris Urmson - "To provide the
best experience we can, we’ll need to master snow-covered roadways, interpret
temporary construction signals and handle other tricky situations that many drivers
encounter".
From the end consumer point of view, ‘raising
awareness’ among consumers and gaining their acceptance would also be as
important in the success of the product. This can be achieved by regular
coverage of the product in the media and introducing the product at major car
expos around the country. Google’s own media properties can be used to run
campaigns for raising awareness about the product.
Working with car manufactures to get a scalable
production of self-driving cars would also be crucial to get the vision
implemented. Japanese car manufacturers such as Toyota, Honda and Nissan among
others have plans to come up with self-driving cars in Japan by 2017. The
distribution of cars would be managed in more or less the same way as it is
done now except that there would be improvements in the current distribution.
Car insurance and car financing would change as well. Dealership can act more
as partners for regular car servicing.
Working with an existing service provider of car
services such as Uber would be necessary to effectively roll out the service to
consumers-at-large. This becomes very important when self-driving cars are
launched as a service and not sold to the consumer.
Google would also provide continued support to
any company for research and development of both hardware and software
technologies that are used in self-driving cars. At the same time, Google would
also be fairly aggressive in acquiring companies that bring any
strategic/technology benefit to the success and improvement of self-driving
cars.
