Skip to main content

Who Pays for the Work We do in Autonomous Vehicles?

In its attempt to sell us on the concept of autonomous vehicles, Audi has asserted that its cars will add a 25th hour to our days. But who will control that 25th hour?

Volvo has recently taken a similar tack with a teaser campaign for its own autonomous vehicle, codename 360c, and asks us how your commute could “more efficiently affect work-life balance.”

The thing is, we don’t need to guess. A large swath of the population already commutes without the need to focus on driving. They, of course, use public transit and a recent study from the University of the West of England raises questions about impact ready access to work has had on their lives.

The study examined 5,000 train passengers who were commuting to London and found that 54% of them spent their time sending work emails in the morning and finishing off work in the evening, effectively extending the work day.

According to researcher Dr Juliet Jain, access to wifi on the train is causing a “blurring of boundaries.” The question of where we should get paid and for what.

“With the concept of clocking on and clocking off no longer straightforward, defining where leisure begins and work ends will be vital for both employers and individuals, as well as a complex task for regulators,” adds Jamie Kerr of the Institute of Directors, a UK-based business organization for company directors.

The question extends beyond compensation, too, because the blurring of lines has the potential to lead to increased stress and reduced productivity.

With commuters who drive to work being added to the equation, the question of how to reconcile what counts as work and what doesn’t will become even more important as millions more join the mobile workforce.

While it’s tempting to look at this time as unlocked, the reality is that the, like train passengers, the time might not become our own, as automakers promise.

It may not be Audi’s job to figure out what we do with that time, but it behooves us to decide what to do with that time before someone else decide for us.

[source: BBC News]

The post Who Pays for the Work We do in Autonomous Vehicles? appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex https://ift.tt/2osehIw
via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Saying Goodbye to the CC V6

For all its size and its global reach, Volkswagen is still, in many ways, a deeply human company. There was, for instance, the Bugatti Veyron an ego project if ever there was one. Then the purchase of Ducati, a move most called folly. And then there was the Phaeton, the Volkswagen that most folks can’t afford. Not only were these moves all strange, I’m sure that they made VW’s accountants furious. None of them made good business sense, but they were all deeply interesting and they all are evidence of the heart that beats at the center of VW. Among these follies is the CC, a car that everyone agrees is rakishly handsome, but that no one really wanted to buy. The car couldn’t last, but the world is brighter for its having been in it. With the approach debut of the Arteon, it seems like a good time to look back on its sadly departing predecessor. The version I drove, because I live in Canada, is a V6 Wolfsburg Edition, which apparently isn’t available in the States. Nor is the V6, not as...
Post a Comment
Read more

T-Prime Makes World Premiere at Beijing

[ See image gallery at www.vwvortex.com ] The SUV segment is one of the fastest growing segments in the world and Volkswagen is showing the world how to do it. With the new T-Prime Concept GTE that was revealed today, the company is showing off all of the technology you can look for in its coming models. The T-Prime is a full-size hybrid SUV that can go up to 31 miles on a charge and gets 87 mpg. The hybrid power station is good for 375 hp and 516 lb/ft of torque and puts the power down with 4MOTION all wheel drive. It’ll get you up to 60 in six seconds. The concept’s real party piece, though, is its interior, which features exclusively touch, gesture, and voice controls. Everything from the infotainment, to the display, and even the gears are controlled by touch-screen. The T-Prime Concept GTE is bigger than the Touareg, and design elements are likely to find their way into all of their SUVs, of which there will be many. Volkswagen is also announcing that they expect to make an S...
Post a Comment
Read more

Watch: The Transport Does a Whole Hell of a lot More than Transport

Petrolicious doesn’t only feature million-dollar classics, it also features the more generally neat, like this 1996 T4 Transporter that became Instagram famous and started and is starting an empire. Callum Creaser’s T4 started life as a panel van, but over the years it has become a homebrew camper van that has gone on adventures around the world. After posting about his adventures to Instagram, the diesel van gained a following and launched The Rolling Home, a series about other people’s small spaces and homey cars. Based on a 1.4-liter diesel with no ECU, Callum says his T4 is easy as pie to work on since information is widely available from sources like ours. The post Watch: The Transport Does a Whole Hell of a lot More than Transport appeared first on VWVortex . from VWVortex https://ift.tt/2KR01Sv via IFTTT
Post a Comment
Read more