US car sales may drop about 40 per cent in the next 25 years because of shared driverless cars, forcing mass-market producers such as General Motors and Ford to slash output, a Barclays analyst said this week.

Vehicle ownership rates may fall by almost half as families move to having just one car, according to a report published by the analyst, Brian Johnson.

Driverless cars will travel twice as many miles as current autos because they will transport each family member during the day, he wrote.

Large-volume automakers “would need to shrink dramatically to survive,” Johnson wrote. “GM and Ford would need to reduce North American production by up to 68 per cent and 58 per cent, respectively.”

Self-driving cars have become a frequent topic for auto executives as the technology emerges.

The market for autonomous technology will grow to $42 billion (€36.9 billion) by 2025 and self-driving cars could account for a quarter of global auto sales by 2035, according to Boston Consulting Group.

By 2017, partially autonomous vehicles will become available in “large numbers,” the firm said in a report in April.

Johnson's report, called Disruptive Mobility, contends that the shift to cars that drive themselves will upend the auto industry.

– (Bloomberg)