Mercedes-Benz has managed to persuade the state authorities, who know a bit about taking a gamble, to allow a fleet of trucks (Future Truck 2025 to give them their space-age title) to perform "certain freeway driving situations".
In addition to the purchase of more clean-fuel buses, the agreement is significant because it essentially changes the assumptions of the M.T.A. about the bus fleet of the future, from one that may include some diesels to one that probably will not.
Looking for cost cuts in the guise of nuclear nonproliferation, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced that Britain will reduce its future fleet of nuclear submarines from four to three, sending chill signals to those who work in the shipbuilding and maintenance sheds that loom over the streets here.
That quote could easily be from a government official at a pitch for a future fleet of zero emission vehicles.
Given this, it is plausible to imagine single-occupancy pods making up a significant portion of future AV fleets — thus increasing fuel efficiency, economizing on materials costs and taking up less space on roads.
These results are consistent with those obtained using methods that generalize the US light-duty vehicle fleet, but are not a forecast of future vehicle attributes because combinations of less perceptible changes to vehicle price, acceleration and size would also be feasible.
Does this mean an entire fleet of Voltec vehicles in the future?
Any future Amazon fleet of drone carriers is likely far off from a technological standpoint, making the above perhaps effectively moot.
As Amazon's business continues to grow, it will need these partners' help to get packages to customers for the foreseeable future — a fleet of leased Prime vans can't do it all.
But in Kalanick's future, with a fleet of driverless Ubers shuttling people around, it might be that everyone's drivers' licenses will expire.
