Study: Self-Driving Cars Will Disrupt Auto Sales More Than Car-Sharing Services

Jennifer van der Kleut

A new study by Boston Consulting Group suggests car manufacturers should be more worried about the introduction of self-driving cars than of car-sharing services like Uber and Lyft.

According to the study, as reported by Reuters, North American auto manufacturers can expect to lose about 52,000 car sales a year to people who decide to opt instead for hailing rides through car-sharing services. However, the study also says they will gain back 44,000 of those sales by selling cars to the car-sharing services.

And, major manufacturers like Ford and General Motors (GM) are reacting smartly to such predictions and investing in car-sharing companies to recoup some of that lost revenue. For example, GM made the major announcement a few weeks ago that it was investing half a billion in Lyft.

GM is also looking even farther forward to its own ride-sharing service using its own cars, to be called Maven. Maven is already operating in Ann Arbor, Michigan-a smart decision considering it’s a major college town where kids like to party, where they may not have the funds to own their own cars, and where parking can sometimes be scarce-and planning to add New York and Chicago to the list soon.

Therefore, the study concludes that self-driving cars will be much more of a “game-changer” than car sharing, with the biggest impact being felt around 2027, Reuters explains.

Self-driving car technology will “trigger the convergence of car-sharing and ride-hailing.”

In other words, the onset of the technology will act as the biggest encouragement for people to ditch the idea of owning a car altogether.

“…Self-driving cars will change the game, erasing the distinction between car-sharing and ride-hailing while providing users with a significant edge in the total cost of ownership,” says Reuters.

Some reports, like one from Barclays published just last month, predict the cost of hailing a self-driving car could be as low as 29 cents per mile, much cheaper than the cost of buying and maintaining one’s own car, not to mention filling it with gas regularly.

Experts say we can expect to see which predictions are accurate within the next five to 10 years.