Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi, working together as Alliance 2022, have announced a six year project that includes becoming an industry leader in the field of self-driving ride sharing vehicles.

The plan is very light on actual details of how it plans on achieving this; it says that it plans to release 12 electric cars, and 40 vehicles capable of autonomous driving by 2022 but doesn’t go into much detail. Still, it’s interesting to see such major manufacturers taking steps towards an autonomous future for the taxi industry.

The announcement comes as part of the alliance’s plan to fully embrace the move towards a fully electric future for the automotive industry.

Electric cars are happening. The tide has now officially turned, and the wave of progress is pushing the entire industry towards the death of the combustion engine. What’s interesting is the additional move towards self-driving technology.

No more need for parking

Obviously we are still in the very early stages of self-driving car technology, but one of the possible outcomes of driverless car tech could be that we no longer need to own cars, as (unless you drive for a living) the amount of time your car spends moving is relatively small.

If cars were self-driving, it would make far more sense for you to hire a car for the amount of time that you need it, also potentially reducing the amount of city space taken up by parking.

Alliance 2022 is by no-means the only horse in the race. With Uber and Lyft both working on self-driving car tech, its set to be a competitive market in the years to come. To get a feel of just how big, Alliance 2022 is estimating combined revenues of $240 billion by the end of its six year plan.

What is interesting about Alliance 2022, is that it has the possibility to built an infrastructure from the ground up, by utilizing the combined forces of car manufacturers. The 12 pure electric models that it’s planning to launch will “utilize common EV platforms and components”.

Via TechCrunch