A September article by Bloomberg coined the term ‘Cord-Never’ in line with those who are ‘Cord-Cutters’ and have surrendered their cable or satellite subscription services.  The full economic impact of Peak Scenarios hit me while listening to an expert media investor talk about ‘Peak Ad Revenue’ in 2005.

Consensus is still developing on the future impact of autonomous and self-driving vehicles, but a common refrain is that as the automotive fleet is better utilized, there will be a need for fewer vehicles.  If that is the case we could see Peak Car, a scenario where there are fewer and fewer new automobiles manufactured each year.

This could actually be the biggest economic impact when these vehicles hit the road.  Imagine a scenario where an iPhone type vehicle comes to what is currently a desktop-like automotive industry.  Currently we have multiple manufacturers and supply chains and very little importance is given to the OS for a car – the OS is the driver.

If a Google or similar entity were to roll out a vehicle with the winning OS, they would be able to capture share and profit, leaving the rest of the industry to drift slowly into obscurity in the same way we see once leading tech firms like Microsoft, RIM/Blackberry, Nokia, Yahoo! and others fight for relevance.