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transport in China will be autonomous, as will 21 percent in Europe and 5 per-
cent in the United States. And PwC’s 2019 Global Consumer Insights Survey
shows that 22 percent of consumers would like to have an autonomous car right
now and 24 percent would consider one in the future.
Those statistics present a challenge for carmakers, which will have to figure
out how to reach, engage, and win over consumers who won’t have their hands
on the wheel or their eyes on the road. Car buyers absorbed by their in-transit
screens will no longer care as much about the way a vehicle drives — how it feels,
its speed, its performance — so carmakers will need to differentiate themselves
and find selling points based on customers’ new priorities.
The fifth-screen economy
One way to view the evolution of consumer experience is as a history of screens.
The first screen that really mattered was the cinema. Then came television, com-
puter screens, and smartphones, each with experience ecosystems and related
economies. We are now about to see the rise of the fifth screen: a big, interactive
one in your personal car, shared car, or robotaxi. Passengers will use this fifth
screen for entertainment, shopping, and work. It will integrate seamlessly with
their smartphones and computers.
An urban commuter of the very near future will be able to take a work call
on her smartphone, then step into a driverless car that turns that call into a video
conference on the fifth screen. This fifth screen will provide a virtual keyboard
and enable voice interaction so she can modify the document under discussion
while she rides in the car. When her work is done, she’ll use that screen to do
some shopping, pay bills, and finish watching the TV show she had started at
home the night before. As the car drives by stores, ads for those stores will pop up
on her screen, and because the screen tracks her eye movements, ads that don’t
interest her will rapidly disappear.
Carpools will be transformed by the fifth screen, too. In shared cars, the in-
ner membrane will transform into multiple screens, each tailored to a different
passenger’s wishes. Audio will be delivered through personal listening devices.
And each screen will anticipate the individual’s needs (weather, news, local res-
taurants, entertainment).