Innovative Thoughts?
I definitely believe this is a new-market disruptive innovation. This idea may lower or even eliminate the age for having a driver’s license. Through the perfection of this innovation, anybody will be able to get into a car and program the destination and sit back and enjoy the ride. Imagine not having to worry about designated drivers, dropping anybody off, picking anybody up, or even getting up to run errands. I foresee the future of this innovation as an evolution in the transportation system as well as a huge change in retail industry. Imagine ordering food or products from a local company and all you have to do is program your car to go to the company and come back with the materials you ordered. Obviously, the industry would have to change to suit the new automated cars. Eventually stores would be required to create a drive-thru system which would allow the consumer to send over their car and get the correct supplies placed into the correct car and then sent back to the consumer. This all will come in time though, but the major change of this innovation would hit the non-consumer market.
Non-consumers who for some reason cannot drive a car will now be able to enjoy the pleasures of driving an automobile without having to actually drive. With this new technology, anybody will be able to get behind the wheel of a car and take to the road without having to worry about accidents, wasting gas, and traffic. If this idea ever takes off, I believe it will impact the way many people live, commute, and work.
Posted in Innovation example, Student post | 
Tags: google, google car, Innovation, self-automated car, technology
Munir Mandviwalla
Brian R Bissell
Brian Michael Connelly
Eric Enders
Steven R Hernandez
Ryan P Maguire
Hasan A Numan
Victor J Bennicelli
Hiren Sheth
Yasmin Beganovic
Benjamin Mayer
Taylor Hayes
James Napier
Brandon Cammarano
Victoria L Cianciulli
Jillian J Davis
Michael Giurlando
Stacy D Gloster
Skyla Pope
Thomas Preston
Philip Raskovich
Nick Valeriano
Maurice T Winkfield
Kwok K Wong
Ermelinda Xhemali
I have heard about this technology recently and it is truly amazing. I think an innovation as radical as this would struggle against non-market barriers such as government regulation (requiring a driver to be present), etc. I think it is definitely an amazing innovation and the amount of miles these cars have been able to drive without driver intervention is remarkable but I do not ever see this technology taking off in real life. First, you are asking people to put their lives in control of a machine and I do not foresee many people relinquishing that control. While it could and probably would prove to be safer then having themselves in control of the vehicle, it is the mental aspect that would hinder its progress. Think of the fear associated with flying over driving despite the odds of getting in a plane crashed as opposed to a car accident. Also, when you have a machine in control of human lives there is a company behind it to blame. Think of the recent Toyota lawsuits that may or may not have been caused by a faulty gas pedal. One malfunction and google lands itself a huge lawsuit. I don’t see non-market contexts such as government regulation ever allowing this amazing innovation to become mainstream.
I think this technology is a great advancement in the automotive industry and hopefully it will have the ability to make driving safer. However, I don’t think it would fall under a new-market innovation/ non-consumer context. I don’t think anyone that wouldn’t normally be driving would be using this car. It would make sense to still have a drivers license to still operate this motor vehicle, so to me this seems to fall under radical sustaining innovation/ undershot. Although, I suppose it would still be a new-market innovation for people that are handicapped and would not be able to normally drive.
This is truly an amazing technology and a revolution in the automotive industry. It could change the way we live. This automated car is definitely a new-market innovation because usually handicapped and the people are not being able to normally drive would be the main consumers of this car. However, this is really a narrow consumer market, so this new innovation might not survive with the narrow consumer target market. Another debate is that: are we really ready for this robotic car? We use all the cool things such as iPhone, Facebook, Twitter to be more socially engaged. We like to be busy, active and connected to each other all the times. We don’t want to be like an idle, get behind the wheel of a car, and give the control of our lives to a machine. I think people are not ready yet for such this kind of robotic car.