In 2024, 88% of people in the US spend more than 3 hours daily on their smartphones. Navigation, camera, and media player are the top 3 daily use cases. When a smartphone is more than just a phone, what could a smartcar grows beyond just a car?
Nokia No More. So “Toyotas”, What’s Next?
At the dawn of the smart car revolution, these vehicles are becoming the personal 3rd places anywhere. What is your dream concept car in this new era? I used to like Nokia and Windows Mobile too. But that changed forever from 2009 since I got my hands on the Samsung Galaxy i7500, the first Samsung Android phone.
I never a car person, and I’m cheap. So, I always buy Toyota. In the first half of 2024 in the US, Toyota sold 1.19 million cars, a 14% increase. Soon Toyota will beat GM to become the №1 soon. Thanks to high interest rates and its hybrid innovation since 1997. This trend may continue for another year or two, or whatever. The more interesting question is what kind of new world we want to build in the next 5–7 years.
But what if a smartcar will no longer be just about getting people from point A to point B? Sorry Toyota, it’s not you, it’s me. My next dream car has to be more than just a reliable car. I’m talking about a car can also be a big battery, Internet hotspot, and Edge AI computer on wheels. A car that can literally be my 3rd place anywhere. Cybertruck: $80K, freedom: priceless.
Battery On Wheels At Scale
The Global Smart Grid Market is projected to grow from $109 billion in 2023 to $189 billion by 2032, according to Custom Market Insights. Now consider that US full-size pickup truck sales in 2023 reached 2.18 million. If they were all EVs priced at $45K, like Rivian R2, such a distributed battery network in the US would be worth $98 billion.
What if these cars could also be like Tesla Powershare? Which powers your home and flattens the solar energy duck curve too. I bet the Smart Grid could become smarter and more useful for many more.
Internet Hotspot On Wheels
Starlink Mini is now available, starting at $50 per month. You can now roam anywhere while staying connected. With Internet and power on the go, what more could a person ask for? On maybe one more thing: distributed computation at scale.
Edge AI Computer On Wheels
Elon Musk wants to turn Tesla into the Amazon For Distributed Inference Farm At Scale. Tesla made more than 6 million cars in Q1 2024 and delivered more than 6.2m in Q2. Tesla plans to ship Hardware 5 by the end of 2025. It may be rebrand as AI 5 to ride the AI tidal wave. To be fair, Tesla is the only car company making its own chips, software, AI stack & accumulating an inflating dataset. If anyone can achieve this crazy idea, Tesla is definitely leading the pack by far.
