Welcome to 2015! Or is it, welcome back to 2015? In case you've forgotten, or maybe you're just too young to know, 2015 is the same year we were transported to during Back to the Future II. This fictional movie with predictions from early 1989 made a lot of guesses as to what future consumers would want. So, a lot of people are asking, "did they get it right?"
Well, Nike recently revealed that they plan to release the self-lacing Nike Air MAG's that Marty McFly wore in the movie towards the end of 2015. The company had previously put 1,500 pairs of the shoes up on ebay for a charity auction back in 2011, although they didn't have the self-lacing technology back then. Still, they managed to raise $5.6 Million in just 10 days, with proceeds going to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.
And who could forget the hoverboard? While we don't quite have hoverboards just yet, this one comes pretty close. The husband and wife team behind the Hendo Hover more than doubled their crowd funded project goal in a little over 2 months this past December. Obviously, people seem pretty intent on getting the hoverboard out to market.
Another futuristic transportation prediction made by the movie were flying cars. Clearly, we don't have flying cars, yet. Bummer. However, just last week BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz introduced us to the next generation of autonomous driving technologies at the 2015 Consumer Electronic Show. BMW unveiled this truly autonomous car that can park all by itself and can pick you up on command by communicating with BMW's Remote Valet Parking Assistant app on your smartphone or smartwatch.
A truly self-parking car! It sure seems amazing, but will people really be interested? I would say so because just last week, The Boston Consulting Group revealed results from an in-depth analysis on consumer interest and adoption for Autonomous Vehicles, or AV's as the industry calls them. According to their report, "self-driving-vehicle features could represent a $42 Billion Market by 2025." The study also found that "partially autonomous vehicles are likely to hit the roads in large numbers by 2017" and that "one-fifth of U.S. drivers say that would pay more than $5k for features such as highway or urban autopilot." Hold on to your hats because it looks like the automotive industry is about to go through a huge innovation period.
