I wanted to repost the part about the mobility of an article I wrote in Turkish for 2024 Trends in the Software World on my blog. The topic of mobility is still in my focus and I am still following the developments closely.
… Now I will end my article with a topic I haven’t mentioned before: Electric vehicles, or in general terms, automobiles. We have entered a strange period that will closely concern the software industry. It is like the Quartz revolution in watches (or the Quartz crisis if we look at it from the Swiss perspective).
To put it simply, a Japanese wristwatch company called Seiko produced the first commercially mass-produced quartz wristwatch in the world, the Astron model. In appearance, there were still hour and minute hands on the dial, but instead of mechanical parts, it was powered by an electrical technology. These watches could show the time accurately for longer periods of time than mechanical watches, were lighter, and as production became easier and costs decreased, they took over the watch market. Mechanical watches currently have a certain user base, and there are very valuable companies that produce these watches.
Now we see something similar in the automobile market. An American company called Tesla brought electric vehicles into our lives, then Chinese battery and electric vehicle companies sprang up like hotcakes, and European automobile manufacturers fell into the same situation as Swiss watch companies. These electric vehicles have very powerful computer hardware and operating systems, and I think this will be a new field of work for software developers.
Cars with internal combustion engines will continue to exist, just like mechanical watches; however, the mobility experience that electric vehicles provide to the user makes us think that we need to look at those vehicles with a different perspective. I just imagine, there is a screen in the middle, being able to put it in camping mode and sleep in the car all night without getting cold, being able to play games, listen to music, have a living space where you can isolate yourself in a capsule, being able to connect to the internet and download applications, being able to do things in the car that you can do on your phone, being able to control the car from your phone or computer, being able to remotely monitor the vehicle’s data, being able to access its cameras… I could list more, there are many possibilities and do you know who is needed to do these? Yes, you guessed it.