Let’s hypothesize a future scenario where a company called Edison dominates the global car and rideshare market with an autonomous vehicle fleet. Edison has this lineup by 2047.
Famiglia Romero loves their Model 2. The voice automated feature named “Edison” has nearly become one of the family. It is able to bring them all to work or school together. The kids’ school is farthest so they are the last to be dropped off. This worried the parents at first but now they are used to it.
The couple Castillo. This married couple was struggling. The wife was suspicious so she checked the trip history of Edison. She saw weekly trips to someone’s house near Blanqueado. She finds out he was cheating. They are no longer together.
She fumbles for her phone. The screen is immediately covered in rain. The Edison App. She sees two pass by, there must be more nearby. 17% left on her phone. She remembers the news earlier: “First Edison vehicle crash”. The company blamed it on a hardware malfunction that was specific to that car but her Dad said that was a load of crap. He used to work at the Edison Factory in San Bernardo until he was replaced. Replaced by a 6-axis robotic arm.
She opens the app. It is on her first page. Where to? It suggests home. But she is not going home. She types in the location and flips on Incognito Mode. Where your trip is not logged to your history. A feature reserved for premium members. She also gets other additional services and quicker response times. An Edison Model 2 appears in front of her. She gets in and is graced by her own climate preferences and the song she was just listening to. But the car is dirty. There is gravel and sand on the floor and gum wrappers everywhere. She sends the complaint on the app. Now it will go to the nearest Edison shop to be cleaned by robots right after this trip. It is dirty but it doesn’t smell. She has seen passenger-less cars driving with the windows down and she suspects this is how they refresh the inside after each ride.
The ride starts. The car makes its way through the night to the highway. Her mind is racing. She wants to smoke inside but does not want another 100 Euro fee. The car seems to know before you even light it. She is now scrolling Instagram on an empty, dark highway.
Crash! the car slams right into a construction barrier. She does not process what happened. But Edison does. It immediately sends encrypted information to headquarters: car still driveable: true no surrounding movement: true
detectable heart rate? False.
At headquarters, a closed doors meeting is swiftly held and a decision is made. Another death in the news would spell the demise of the company. So, the car drives off into the forest never to be seen again.
THE END