In the face of daily pandemic-induced upheavals, the notion of "business as usual" can often seem a quaint and distant notion to today's workforce. But even before we all got stuck in never-ending Zoom meetings, the logistics and transportation sectors (like much of America's economy) were already subtly shifting in the face of continuing advances in robotics, machine learning and autonomous navigation technologies. In their new book, The Work of the Future: Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines, an interdisciplinary team of MIT researchers (leveraging insights gleaned from MIT's multi-year Task Force on the Work of the Future) exam the disconnect between improvements in technology and the benefits derived by workers from those advancements. It's not that America is rife with "low-skill workers" as New York's new mayor seems to believe, but rather that the nation is saturated with low-wage, low-quality positions -- positions which are excluded from the ever-increasing perks and paychecks enjoyed by knowledge workers. The excerpt below examines the impact vehicular automation will have on rank and file employees, rather than the Musks of the world.

Chinese smart electric vehicle startup Xpeng has announced a series of innovations that direct the company towards crafting the mobility ecosystem of the future. "Our exploration of more efficient, safer, carbon-neutral mobility solutions goes far beyond just smart EVs, and is the cornerstone of our long-term competitive advantages," said He Xiaopeng, chairman and CEO of XPeng, at the startup's 2021 Tech Day in Beijing on Sunday. "We strive to implement cutting-edge mobility technologies in mass-production models for the benefit of our customers." Xiaopeng went into detail on the company's latest versions of its advanced driver assistance system (ADAS), its supercharger network, a next-generation flying car built with HT Aero and its robotic unicorn for kids. Xpeng is planning to roll out the next generation of its ADAS to drivers in select cities during the first half of 2022. Xpilot 3.5 will feature "City Navigation Guided Pilot (NGP)" and will only be available to drivers of Xpeng's P5 family sedan, which can be built with lidar, millimeter-wave radar and a 3D visual perception network that can recognize, classify and position multiple targets – all of which is essential for city-level NGP.

Mobility systems have been integrated for the past decade and continue to shape the user experiences in cars. Experiences Per Mile (EPM) is a movement centered on addressing the mobility industry's transformation to an experience-driven vision, which puts the consumer first. The pandemic accelerated digital transformation and most everything else about how technology drives business forward. We look at the top trends for the coming year. The Experiences Per Mile Advisory Council was formed to encourage collaboration among an exclusive group of automotive executives, analysts, and industry insiders regarding the changing value chains in automotive being driven by the connected movement.

The insurance, transportation, and retail industries will either not exist in 20 years or will have changed completely due to artificial intelligence (AI), innovation, and other factors, according to Dave Jordan, global head, consulting and services integration at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). "AI plays a considerable role in removing friction from our current experiences with both mobility and shopping,'' Jordan said. "Over the next several years, AI will combine with … building-block technologies to enable a mobility and a maker ecosystem that absorb these three industries." SEE: Special feature: Autonomous vehicles and the enterprise (free PDF) (TechRepublic) Jordan provided examples of the ways TCS' futurists see each of these industries becoming absorbed into broader, horizontal ecosystems. Insurance is either absorbed as a value-added piece of ecosystems, or the need simply goes away. "As autonomous vehicles become ubiquitous, there will be dramatically fewer traffic accidents, reducing or eliminating the need for auto insurance,'' Jordan said.

The entire way people and goods travel from point A to point B is changing, driven by a series of converging technological and social trends: the rapid growth of carsharing and ridesharing; the increasing viability of electric and alternative powertrains; new, lightweight materials; and the growth of connected and, ultimately, autonomous vehicles. The result is the emergence of a new ecosystem of mobility that could offer faster, cheaper, cleaner, safer, more efficient, and more customized travel. While uncertainty abounds, in particular about the speed of the transition, a fundamental shift is driving a move away from personally owned, driver-driven vehicles and toward a future mobility system centered around (but not exclusively composed of) driverless vehicles and shared mobility. The shift will likely affect far more than automakers--industries from insurance and health care to energy and media should reconsider how they create value in this emerging environment. We believe a series of technological and social forces, including the emergence of connected, electric, and autonomous vehicles and shifting attitudes toward mobility, are likely to profoundly change the way people and goods move about.

There is a critically important dialogue going on across the extended global automotive industry about the future evolution of transportation and mobility. This debate is driven by the convergence of a series of industry-changing forces and mega-trends (see figure 1). Innovative technologies are changing how companies develop and build vehicles. Electric and fuel-cell powertrains tend to offer greater propulsion for lower energy investment at lower emission levels.1 New, lightweight materials enable automakers to reduce vehicle weight without sacrificing passenger safety.2 Further breakthroughs are advancing the introduction of autonomous vehicles; increasingly, daily news reports suggest that driverless cars will soon become a commercial reality.3 We have already seen rapid advances in the "connected car--?--innovations that integrate communications technologies and the Internet of Things to provide valuable services to drivers.4

How can companies identify--and source--the technologies that will be critical for crafting a strategy to keep up in the shifting automotive landscape? The automotive industry is in the early phases of what is expected to be rapid and fundamental change. Technology is the key to further penetration of all these trends, as well as the developing business models that allow companies to capitalize on them. The industry players--traditional automotive companies and new entrants alike--that identify and secure those technological resources will be best positioned to benefit in the new mobility landscape. Thus, industry players need to think about sourcing underlying technologies rather than acquiring single products or services.

There is a critically important dialogue going on across the extended global automotive industry about the future evolution of transportation and mobility. This debate is driven by the convergence of a series of industry-changing forces and mega-trends (see figure 1). Innovative technologies are changing how companies develop and build vehicles. Electric and fuel-cell powertrains tend to offer greater propulsion for lower energy investment at lower emission levels.1 New, lightweight materials enable automakers to reduce vehicle weight without sacrificing passenger safety.2 Further breakthroughs are advancing the introduction of autonomous vehicles; increasingly, daily news reports suggest that driverless cars will soon become a commercial reality.3 We have already seen rapid advances in the "connected car"--innovations that integrate communications technologies and the Internet of Things to provide valuable services to drivers.4