The Economist

The EconomistAugust 4th 2018 Business 53

1

2 younger members to give up their mem-
bership which is good for business says
Mr Takazaka.
Many retirees simply want the same
things as those a decade younger slightly
tweaked. O-net Rakuten’s matchmaking
arm in 2013 launched a dating service for
seniors which is growing. Shiseido beauti-
cians go into care homes to teach old peo-
ple how to do their make-up at a cost (to
the care home) of ¥10000-20000 ($88-177)
per visit; a process with therapeutic bene-
fits. Since older people often spend longer
in a shop making them more likely to
spend some convenience-store chains
have tried to become places to socialise by
adding dining facilities or having person-
nel make coffee rather than offering it from
a machine says Ming Li of Lawson a chain
of convenience stores.
Companies have also noticed how in
Japan too elderly folk are reluctant to shop
online. Lawson is rolling out stocks of
books in some shops while it and other
convenience-store chains (so ubiquitous
that older people can often walk to them)
are competing with supermarkets by
stocking more food cleaning products and
over-the-counter medicines.
Despite the plethora of initiatives busi-
nesses are only in the early days of work-
ing out how to target older consumers says
Hiroyuki Murata who heads the Centre
for Studies on Ageing Societies and advises
firms on targeting the silver-haired. Few
companies have yet started opening early
for example when old people say they like
to get out and about. Most stores have yet
to improve access for the infirm with say
handrails (public facilities have brought in
features such as slow escalator speeds).
Marketing to older people is another
area that needs work. They want to be sub-
tly targeted says Mr Uotani rather than be-
ing reminded of their age through say ad-
verts using someone advanced in years or
with wrinkles. “I’m 64 and I am not old!”
he says. His firm seems to have pulled this
off; sales of Shiseido’s Prior range of cos-
metics aimed at those over 50 with simple
packaging and instructions on how to use
the products in a large font have risen by
120% per year in the two years since its
launch in 2015.
Another sizeable opportunity may lie
in what firms can then export in terms of
know-how as other countries follow Ja-
pan’s demographic trajectory. Last year
Shiseido started to run its care-home cos-
metics lessons in Taiwan. Renaissance has
developed Synapsology a programme of
simple but ever-changing exercises for the
brain and now makes money both taking
the programme into care homes and certi-
fying people to run the course. It has struck
a deal for a South Korean company to host
it locally. That fits nicely with another pri-
ority of which Japanese firms often talk:
becoming more global-minded. 7

N

OBODY likes it when a taxi takes lon-

ger than expected to arrive. But that is

what is happening with self-driving cars.

Building a vehicle that can handle a busy

street with cyclists pedestrians road-

works and emergency vehicles is a tall or-

der. In March a pedestrian was killed in

Tempe Arizona when a self-driving Uber

vehicle failed to spot her as she wheeled

her bicycle across an empty road at night

and the vehicle’s safety driver failed to hit

the brakes. There is a growing sense that

the technology has so far overpromised

and underdelivered. So a trial of self-driv-

ing vans that began in Frisco Texas on July

30th is notable for its realistic approach to

what the technology can do today.

Drive.ai a startup has deployed seven

minivans to transport people within a lim-

ited area of the city that includes an office

park and a retail area. “We are identifying a

valuable use case that we can deploy with

today’s technology” says Andrew Ng a

board member and a pioneer of “deep

learning” the technique that underpins

the current boom in artificial intelligence.

As the technology evolves he says so will

autonomous-vehicle services. For now

though Drive.ai is keeping things simple.

All pick-ups and drop-offs happen at

designated stops to minimise disruption

as passengers get on and off. Riders hail the

vans using an app and go to the nearest

stop; a vehicle then appears to pick them

up. (The vehicles do not circulate continu-

ously like shuttle buses but wait to be

called and plan their routes dynamically.)

Use of the service is free of charge for now.

The vans are painted a garish orange

and clearly labelled as self-driving vehi-

cles. “We weren’t going for pretty we were

going for distinctive” says Mr Ng who

draws an analogy with yellow school bus-

es: people understand that some kinds of

vehicles behave in particular ways and ac-

commodate them accordingly. Screens

mounted on the vans’ exteriors let them

communicate with pedestrians and other

road users for example to tell a pedestrian

that it is safe to cross a road. Rather than

trying to build a vehicle that mimics a hu-

man-piloted one Drive.ai is making the

self-driving nature of its vehicles explicit.

Similarly rather than trying to build a

vehicle that can navigate roadworks (a no-

toriously difficult problem given inconsis-

tent signage) Drive.ai has arranged for the

city authorities to tell it where any road-

works are each day so that its vehicles can

avoid them. The company has also liaised

with emergency services (another poten-

tial source of confusion for autonomous

vehicles) and held a series of town-hall

meetings to answer questions from locals.

Drive.ai will limit the service to day-

light hours which makes things simpler

and safer. Each vehicle will initially have a

safety driver who will shift to a passenger

seat if all goes well. If a van gets confused it

can stop and call for help: a remote super-

visor then advises it how to proceed (rath-

er than driving the vehicle remotely which

Commercialising autonomous vehicles

Gently does it

A six-month trial in Texas focuses on what self-driving technology can do now