The Week in Mobility — 09 April 2021

20 years ago Wikipedia, the first Xbox, iTunes, the first bluetooth capable phone and google images were 2001’s greatest technology highlights and have since had profound knock on cultural, behavioural and technological impacts. Fast forward to 2041 and there’s no real knowing how the ripple effects of what we experience today will coalesce to bring long term change. This is an exploration of just one possible version of an imagined future and as such should be read only as a thought starter and provocation. Enjoy..

2041

The year is 2041 and the UK’s wine industry is thriving, employing over 30,000 people across the value chain. However, given that rising temperatures are responsible for the UK becoming a more vineyard friendly environment, the industry’s success is bitter sweet.

Despite 60% of the world’s energy now coming from renewable sources and ongoing mass decarbonisation of the transportation sector, the climate crisis is felt very acutely. The number of Climate Refugees has now reached a staggering 150 million, as unpredictable weather renders more and more of the global south uninhabitable. Increasingly smaller areas of land are suitable for growing coffee, wheat and rice which has caused significant fears over food scarcity. In the mid 2030s temporary food rationing and a permanent ban on natural meat sales were introduced in order to avoid a global crisis. The pressure on the food industry has however accelerated farming innovations and today, vertical farms, micro farms, hydroponic farms and smart farms are all commonplace in both cities and rural environments.

During the 2030s the food industry’s innovation was driven by a pressing need to use alternative raw materials, avoid overproduction and localise supply chains. Techniques pioneered, such as the use of synthetic biology have been adopted in multiple other manufacturing sectors, including personalised medicine. Between ongoing reduction in the cost of solar power, continued manufacturing innovation and a recently introduced global carbon tax ( in which goods and services are taxed according to their environmental footprint), the next decade is looking more hopeful with regards to the global fight against climate change.

Mainstream use of quantum computing was the key that unlocked the simulation capabilities required to enable wider adoption of autonomous vehicles in some cities. Today they’re not the bed and office on wheels anticipated in 2015, rather dynamic and flexible bolsters to public transit and ride hailing, as well as for long haul freight. Whilst automation has certainly replaced some jobs, jobs building seawalls, green building retrofits and caregiving have all experienced substantial growth. Technological displacement will continue to change the job market over the coming decades and numerous variations of universal basic income models are frequently posited and debated.

Controversially, some people are electing to get digital implants which largely removed the need for a handheld device. Cognitive implants have been proven to improve memory, particularly for those with Alzheimers. However it is widely felt that for those without memory problems, increasing cognitive capacity will introduce new forms of digital intelligence inequalities. Ethics councils are torn, and the debate is closely tangled with the relationship between humans and AI — both of whom participate in the ethics councils.

Pick of the headlines: Britain bans cash, Quiet Cargo Drones are Crashing into Pigeons, Remove your entire digital footprint from as little as $1000

Elsewhere in the industry

• Rivian is creating a network of 600 supercharging stations dubbed the Rivian Adventure Network — Transport Topics
• Jeep swiftly announced its own network in partnership with Electrify America — InsideEVs
• Six utilities in the US have formed The Electric Highway Coalition to build a massive charging network — CNET
• Biden announced his $2 Trillion Infrastructure Plan, including $174 billion to support electric vehicles — Vox
• Citroen, Peugeout, Nissan, BMW and Vauxhall are cutting their EV prices in the UK to remain eligible for the recently reduced Plug in Car Grant — AutoExpress
• Wrightbus awarded £11.2 Million by the UK Government to develop low cost hydrogen fuel cell technology for buses — gov.uk
• British Lithium is building a pilot lithium extraction plant — Business Leader
• Polestar pledges a net zero carbon car by 2030 and considers going public — Polestar, Bloomberg
• Ford will become the first mass producer of electric vans in Russia — Moscow Times
• Argo AI and Lilium announce plans to go public — The Information, The Verge
• First Bus order 125 electric buses from BYD and ADL — electrive
• Canoo is having a bad week — BusinessWire

Miscellaneous

Last week a planned experiment, SCoPEx, between Harvard University and the Swedish Space Corporation was cancelled. The team had planned to send a balloon filled with chalk dust 20 Km above the town of Kiruna in Northern Sweden. Owing to chalk’s reflective properties, the experiment was to test the hypothesis that we can slow down climate change by reflecting sunlight back into space. The solar bio-engineering project backed by Bill Gates was opposed by Sweden’s indigenous Sami people, many of whom are semi-nomadic reindeer herders, who were not consulted in the planning stages. The experiment was criticised by the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation who wrote in a letter,

“We note that [releasing particles into the stratosphere] is a technology that entails risks of catastrophic consequences, including the impact of uncontrolled termination, and irreversible sociopolitical effects that could compromise the world’s necessary efforts to achieve zero-carbon societies. There are therefore no acceptable reasons for allowing the SCoPEx project to be conducted either in Sweden or elsewhere.”

This debacle has sparked debate in the climate community, showing the vital importance of proactive and empathetic stakeholder engagement in the pursuit of radical technological climate solutions.

Have a lovely weekend!