【】TopicsIntelSelf-Driving Cars

The race to create self-driving cars is on—but what happens when they’re everywhere and nobody has to drive?

That could lead to a “passenger economy” worth $7 trillion by 2050, according to a new report by Intel and analyst firm Strategy Analytics.。

While the name of the potential new market is lame, the amount of cash it's estimated to drive is not: the study predicts self-driving cars will free up 250 million hours of commuting time per year, providing the backbone for a thriving $800 billion industry by 2035, when the study predicts fully autonomous vehicles will begin to proliferate globally. 。

Intel cites other paradigm shifts like the adoption of smartphones and personal computing for its intense interest in this potential sector; tech advancements have killed off late adopters before, and it will again soon, according to this logic. 。

“Companies should start thinking about their autonomous strategy now,” Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said in a release promoting the study. “Less than a decade ago, no one was talking about the potential of a soon-to-emerge app or sharing economy because no one saw it coming."。

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"Companies should start thinking about their autonomous strategy now" 。

The $7 trillion estimate is broken down into a few potential revenue streams, the largest of which at $3.7 trillion is "consumer mobility-as-a-service," i.e. providing people with transportation via car-sharing and ride-hailing services as private car ownership is phased out. Business mobility-as-a-service, which would conceivably replace current trucking and freight standards, is estimated to produce $3 trillion.。

The remaining $200 million of the revenue could come from "new applications and services" -- but with new innovations, there's no telling how valuable this could be. 。

The study also predicts that the increased safety levels that will come from autonomous vehicles will wind up saving more than $234 billion in public safety costs and save over half a million lives between 2035 and 2045, providing even more value. 。

Intel has certainly embraced the autonomous future; the company established a $100 million fund for self-driving development back in 2012 and made an even bigger investment with the purchase of automotive imaging company Mobileye for a whopping $15.3 billion back in March. 。

Intel doesn't have a plan to actually manufacture its own vehicles -- instead, it's building a platform it hopes to market to the industry at large -- the company's partnership with BMW on its iNext platform is an early example of such an arrangement.。

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