Event
The phrase “computer on wheels” barely scratches the surface.
Presenter
Gary Silberg, The Americas Head of Automotive, KPMG (US)
Talk about 0 to 60. Right out of the gate, KPMG’s 9th Annual Automotive Executive Forum in Los Angeles hit the ground at full speed.
Opening with a jaw-dropping homage to the onward march of computing technology, the video saved the most amazing—and relevant—fast fact for the end: A 2016 Ford F150 uses nearly 160 million lines of code to get from here to there. Compare that with the Hubble telescope (10 million lines), a Boeing 787 (21 million) and Facebook (61 million).
The phrase “computer on wheels” barely scratches the surface.
After acknowledging the international nature of the audience—at least 12 countries were represented—Gary Silberg took the audience at the Los Angeles Convention Center on a brief tour of the KPMG Automotive practice’s ever-evolving worldview, which was—and remains—predicated on a 2011 notion of the intersection of technology and automotive. Between 2012 and 2017, the practice authored and published six ground-breaking reports that examined the onward march toward and societal implications of autonomous vehicles (AVs):
Gary Silberg, The Americas Head of Automotive, KPMG (US)
The thesis, according to Silberg, is that mobility vis-à-vis AVs will grow initially as a fleet-based service primarily because the cost of the components is so high at the moment. By the end of the decade, says Silberg, autonomous vehicles will be available to consumers.
But perhaps before you see an AV in your garage something “as profound, if not even bigger,” in Silberg’s view, may materialize and it just happens to be the subject of the team’s latest paper: Autonomy delivers: An oncoming revolution in the movement of goods.
“This paper is about the delivery of goods to your house, to anywhere you were in the world,” said Silberg. “This market is going to be massive. The cost per mile is going to plummet. Think of these little bots all over cities making that last mile delivery.”
Before pushing “Go” on a roster of amazing speakers, Silberg took a few moments to highlight KPMG’s involvement with Caltech’s Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies (CAST), a research facility that focuses on robotics, drones, driverless cars and machine learning.
In an effort to give back to the innovation community KPMG has established an annual academic achievement scholarship to be awarded the most groundbreaking Ph.D. project at CAST. The inaugural prize went to a three-student team that has developed the prototype for an autonomous drone ambulance. The objective is to provide emergency response professionals the ability to access victims in hard-to-reach accident, fire and disaster sites and airlift them to safety for treatment.
To access Gary’s presentation, please click here