the Future of Autonomous Vehicles

Envisioning the future state of how people interact with and trust their autonomous vehicle system

Challenge: To prepare for new ownership values in a future of autonomous transportation experiences.

Design Opportunity: Rethinking car ownership through a platform to lease brand vehicles with autonomous features for an allotted amount of time based on occasion.

Why? The values behind car ownership are changing with Millennial preferences and future generations, and autonomous technology will be a catalyst to accelerate these changes.

FCA 2030

A Brand lease system that empowers the individual customer to decide what type of vehicle, amenities, and service they need depending on the context of their trip.

Brand Lease Service

Meet the Watson Family. How would FCA autonomous vehicles be at the center of their family traveling experiences? How can we empower people to decide what type of vehicle, amenities, and service they need depending on the context of their trip?

Research

Reframing Car Ownership

The semester began with exploratory secondary research and developed to primary research methods as we established a focus. Using workshops and interviews, we gauged millennial values and cross referenced these findings against broader data to form an in-depth understanding of how the young community views ownership of automobiles. 

Initial Questions and STEEP Forces

• Social: What is a car to people? How will people be working and playing in the next generation? How will their lifestyles, behaviors, and interactions change as technology and future advances affect planning, infrastructure, and everyday living?
• Technology: What autonomous technology features do people trust? 
• Environmental: How will urban, suburban, and rural areas be affected by autonomous systems? Can cities become smarter and greener because of changes to transportation systems?
• Economic: How could our economy be different if transportation becomes more about ride sharing than individual car ownership?
• Political: What laws need to be passed to enable autonomous vehicles? How will car insurance and safety protocols work in the future? 

Explorative and Generative Research

We designed a survey and had people draw what they wanted inside their autonomous vehicle. We had 43 responses. There were the two perspectives that we found:

1. Those who preserve old values in car ownership

• Individual ownership and control
• Freedom
• Privacy 

2. Those who are embracing new values in temporary ownership

• Shared ownership
• Trust in technology and technology trends
• Customization and leisure

Affinity Diagramming

In order to identify the scope of the problem space we are trying to solve, we affinity diagrammed the the insights and thoughts we collected. We organized the categories into the following:

• Moving creates new opportunities and routines
• Moving in public (together) and private (individual) modes
• Moving to solve problems 
• Moving objects 
• Moving transitions and shifts culture

Stakeholder Map

FCA Brand Lease Service Blueprint

We visualized a service blueprint to clarify all interactions involving produce devices, stakeholders, and FCA's service.

Video Process

We chose to tell our story using stop-motion because it invites playful thinking without too much promise of resolved detail. Our pitch needed to be optimistic and high-level, telling about what could be rather than telling a what could go wrong story. Thus, our process in creating the video was playful and fun to reach the essence of family traveling that we learned from our research, while considering the wider context of introducing autonomous technology.

FCA Presentation

We presented our project to FCA UX designers and executives, including Senior Vice President of Design, Ralph Gilles!