The Future is upon us – Eclectic^TM

VoIP radically re-structured telecommunications – and continues to do so – but there’s a new(ish) acronym attracting the tech journalists and will radically disturb the way things are done; MaaS – Mobility as a Service. The ‘asS’ bit isn’t new of course, originating in the Software as a Service industry, the idea being that instead of owning software like Word, you rent it and it becomes a service rather than a product. It clicks with a general change taking place of rental rather than ownership in, for example, the property market. And, of course, renting VoIP based PBX services in the Cloud rather than buying a physical box in your office and maintaining it yourself. Cars too are increasingly being leased.

But MaaS goes several steps further and is genuinely capable of changing the way we all live. Volkswagen, for instance, recently announced a driverless ride-hailing service in Israel. This is an enormous step and will inevitably lead to the need to no longer own (or even lease), park, fuel and maintain your own car – when you need one, you summon it from the app on your phone and it disappears again once it’s delivered you to wherever you need to go. This will in turn lead to a massive reduction of cars littering our streets, car parks and driveways. And, of course, all the cars will be electric – a more ecologically sustainable energy source.

I’m now going to invent a new term for these new vehicles, ‘eco-electric’ or simply, eclectic^TM.
It requires the cooperation of government to enable legislation and changes to transport infrastructure – big things, which the Israeli government have committed to doing. VW are using the Israel experiment as a test bed for its global ambitions

Full commercial services are to start in 2022; can’t wait.