How Long Does It Take For Innovations to be Un-Deployed? What are the crash points?
I enjoyed discovering this graph in class today. It leads me to think about how some innovations and technologies become “un-deployed”, obsolete or unsustainable.
In the real estate and development field, we are currently transitioning away from business models built upon automobile dependency, a technology innovation listed on this graph. Housing and commercial markets are beginning to realize the benefits of dense, pedestrian-oriented development throughout the United States. But what is the crash point for this un-deployment of automobile technology? And how long will it take?
Well, I think that we have our CRASH POINT. The State of Minnesota has a $50 billion gap for funding road projects planned up to the year 2030. That’s a lot of money. It has been interesting to read articles and listen to people talk about fuel efficient and electric cars, because I don’t think it matters. The future of the automobile economy isn’t dictated by the price of oil or the storage capacity of batteries. Instead, it is the cost of the maintenance of hundreds of thousands of miles of right-of-ways that will make driving everywhere, all of the time, impossible.
Americans are not only beginning to drive more fuel efficient cars, but they are also driving fewer miles, killing the gasoline tax model for road financing. When we finally have the political will to sort out this dead funding scenario, Americans are going to be charged a user fee for miles traveled. And it’s not going to be the 1 cent a mile, or whatever the ridiculous equivalent is today, it will be much more. Driving is going to get much more expensive over the next 20 years.
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