New thinking required: the end of oil (what of cars, pedestrians and walking)?

Here’s a startling article by Seth Miller, predicting the end of oil for energy use, because of electric car technology. A combination of few moving parts, and extreme battery efficiency, is giving rise to a new generation of cars with expected lives of up to forty or fifty years and capable of running a million miles. This is a change in personal transportation the likes of which we have not experienced for a hundred years – since horses gave way to cars.

Our expectations of what we could do, where we could travel, as societies changed completely and irreversibly when cars came along. The coachmakers who embraced change survived. The ones who thought cars were a passing fad did not.

Our cities will change with the widespread adoption of the electric car: many of us will give up owning cars, instead ordering them up by app, either driving or being driven by automated technology to where we want to go, and then the car will continue on to whoever wants it next…

There will be much less road space needed for parking, and cars will become even safer for the pedestrians around them. Could all our cities undergo a slow transformation that makes them denser, and more importantly, walkable and pedestrian-friendly? After all, walking is good for you, perhaps in more ways than you know.

Perhaps there is a future where walking and driving are complementary activities, rather than competing as they are now. The change in behavior, thinking and attitudes to come will be quite remarkable. Already, ride-sharing services have changed how we think about cars and transport

Lots of new thinking is needed for the future…!

There will be lots of new thinking at the ‘Brain for Business‘ workshop on September 8th – some places are still available. There is a great line-up of speakers for the day.

My new book ‘A Brain for Business – A Brain for Life‘ is available from June 2017.