Providence, Rhode Island - Tesla boss Elon Musk says that within 20 years driving will be a sport, much as horse-riding is now.
In conversation with the Nevada governor Brian Sandoval at a recent meeting of the National Governors Association, he told the leaders of more than 30 American states that not only would the majority of cars be electric within two decades, but that few if any people would use a non-autonomous car as daily transport.
“Probably in ten years more than a half of new vehicle production is electric in the United States,” he said.
Huge transformation
“I think almost all cars produced will be autonomous in ten years, almost all. It will be rare to find one that is not, in ten years. That’s going to be a huge transformation.
“The thing to bear in mind though is that new vehicle production is only about only five percent of the vehicle fleet.
"How long does a car or truck last? They last 15-20 years before they are finally scrapped. So, new vehicle production is at most one fifteenth of the fleets.
“Even when new vehicle production switches over to electric or autonomous, that still means the vast majority of the fleet on the roads is not. It will take another five to ten years before that becomes the majority, EV or autonomous.
No more steering wheels
“But if you were to say, go out twenty years, overwhelmingly, things are electric or autonomous, overwhelmingly.
“Fully autonomous. There will not be a steering wheel.
"Twenty years? It will be like having a horse. People have horses, which is cool. There will be people who have non-autonomous cars, like people have horses. It would just be unusual to use that as a mode of transport.”