What to do with all those parking garages when self-driving cars begin to fill U.S. roadways? That’s a question that Cushman & Wakefield asked corporate real estate executives during a series of surveys during CoreNet Global Summits in North America, Asia and Europe. And the answer? Well, that’s not clear.
The real estate executives who were surveyed told Cushman & Wakefield that they expect autonomous vehicles – self-driving cars – to become prevalent between the years 2025 and 2034.
And when these cars do become common, executives might have a difficult time figuring out what to do with the parking facilities in their portfolios. One-fourth of survey respondents said they expect to have a difficult and/or costly time repurposing parking garages that become obsolete when autonomous vehicles become the norm.
Cushman & Wakefield said that this is a significantly larger issue for companies whose headquarters are in the Americas.
Corporate executives also told Cushman & Wakefield that they expect the time workers spend driving or actively commuting to their jobs now will be replaced by work activities. Cushman & Wakefield found that 69 percent of respondents said they will use the time saved by self-driving cars to either conduct business phone calls or complete work.
This expectation is the highest for business executives who live in the Americas, where 76 percent of respondents said they will use their newly freed-up time to work.
Executives also said that they didn’t expect self-driving technology to impact the quantity of office space required by most companies.