The car-sharing related industries have flourished in major global cities in the preceding decade, while such business model along with its operation was introduced to Taiwan in recent 5 years. According to foreign analyses, it is estimated that the sales of new cars in the Asia-Pacific region will be reduced by 1.2% due to the impact of the car sharing economy (1.3% in Europe); this are the figures on pre-requisite that full automation technology is not introduced to the market. By 2025, when full driving automation technology becomes mature and is gradually introduced into the auto market, my estimation will be influences on new car sales in Taiwan may higher than those in other countries due to the following factors:
- 75% of the Taiwanese population settle in the seven metropolitan areas (Six special municipalities plus Hsinchu) where the conditions are the most suitable for developing self-driving cars;
- Socially speaking, the Taiwanese are more open to new technologies.
By 2030 when self-driving has entered its maturity stage vis-à-vis technology and price, my personal projection on new car sales will decline by 10% compared to now, which is equivalent to at least 30,000 cars less sold a year. Here are my perspectives backing such inference:
- A significant increase in sales of self-driving cars can be expected in the period between 2027 and 2030, which may due to the expansion of the car-sharing fleets whose vehicles equipped with full driving automation system are solutions to irksome parking conditions on the streets and the fleet’s uptime.
- The utilization rate of each personal-use car is about 5% (24hr x 5% = 1.2hr a day), while that for each (manned) vehicle of the car-sharing fleet in a metropolitan area may quadruple to 20% (30% at the period 0700~2200; 5% at the period 2200~0700). Also, given each shared car carries an average of 1.5 passengers, this will be equivalent to a utilization by single passengers at 30%, which can be interpreted that one self-driving car may satisfy the mobility needs conventionally met by 6 personal-use cars (30/5 = 6). In the car-sharing industry, optimistically speaking, it is estimated that 100,000 self-driving cars for business use altogether (including self-driving electric cars and self-driving fuel vehicles; currently there are about 70,000 taxis in the seven metropolitan areas) will engage in service by 2030, which can theoretically replace 600,000 personal-use cars. In addition, as there are currently about 6 million private cars in Taiwan, this means 1/10 of the cars per capita need not be replaced in the year, which is equivalent to 35,000 new cars to be sold on the year (given the number of new cars per year is 350,000, not incl. medium and large trucks).
- If progressing to the year 2035, I think the proportion of self-driving cars will reach 30% of the overall new car sales (my projection is less optimistic compared to the 75% indicated by foreign reports), that is, there will be 100,000 new cars equipped with full driving automation in the year. Since the mileage of a self-driving shared car is 6 times or more than that of an ordinary car, which leads to elimination and replacement every 3-4 years, the proportion of fully self-driving cars in overall new car sales will increase year by year in its era or prosperity around the 2030s.
With such data as a reference, the development of car sharing from the 2030s will be as follows:
- A majority of taxi fleets will face replacement by car-sharing fleets soon as the rate of self-driving sharing cars will be lower than half of taxis.
- The fleet management system of the self-driving sharing fleet will be the key to profitability, and how the utilization rate can be enhanced requires further studies.
- When there is an upward trend in sharing economy, my guess is that various car distributors will engage themselves in the operation and management over the car-sharing fleets to make up for the deficiency in profits caused by new car sales drop.
- Self-driving truck fleets will be organized by car-sharing fleets and avail the services to factories and logistics vendors.
- The demand for parking lots in urban areas has decreased, thereby facilitating urban renewal for some parking lots with lower usage rate.
- Significant increase in cleaning job opportunities by car-sharing fleets due to heightened demand of cabin cleaning for their vehicles.
- Electronic billboards on the body of sharing vehicles have become another important advertising manner.