Skip to main content

Report predicts how future mobility solutions will affect automotive OEMs

Global management consultancy, Arthur D. Little (ADL) has released a new study, The Future of Automotive Mobility, based on a global survey of 6,500 participants, including customers, industry players and regulators. The report examines how the megatrends of electric mobility, car sharing and autonomous driving are likely to impact on the global automotive ecosystem and future OEM sales. The report notes that the future of mobility will no longer depend primarily on the preferences of customers, but wil
March 31, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
Global management consultancy, Arthur D. Little (ADL) has released a new study, The Future of Automotive Mobility, based on a global survey of 6,500 participants, including customers, industry players and regulators. The report examines how the megatrends of electric mobility, car sharing and autonomous driving are likely to impact on the global automotive ecosystem and future OEM sales.

The report notes that the future of mobility will no longer depend primarily on the preferences of customers, but will increasingly be driven by regulation as cities seek to resolve traffic-generated problems such as congestion and poor air quality. Electric mobility, car sharing and autonomous driving solutions all have an important role to play in meeting these challenges. However, ADL believes the effect on traditional OEMs’ production volume may not be as severe as some experts have predicted.

As an example, the report says a key component of autonomous driving will be “mobility-on-demand” solutions, in which customers use “robot taxis.” Based on real mobility data from almost 100 mega-cities, ADL simulated the effect of robot taxis upon mobility behaviour and car sales. The findings revealed that even with total market coverage, their effect was not as bad as the predicted worst case scenario.

The report details how new roles are being created in the automotive-supplier pyramid, with the shift to the electric drive train and the increasing importance of software being additional factors to consider. However, a major challenge for manufacturers is the loss of direct access to the mobility customer.
 
Wolf-Dieter Hoppe, author of the study and associate director at ADL, warns: “Millions of individual customers will be replaced by a few very large, multinational fleet operators. These could take over the dominant role of OEMs in the ecosystem, as they would have direct customer access as well as considerable volume power. In particular, this would be a problem for today’s premium manufacturers.”

Related Content

  • ITS industry needs more effort to get to the future
    January 19, 2012
    Eric Sampson, visiting professor at Newcastle University and City University London and ambassador for ITS-UK, provides a retrospective on the last couple of decades and takes a look at what the ITS industry still needs to do to get to where it needs to be
  • Do buses need subsidies in congestion charging areas
    June 20, 2016
    David Crawford takes a look at the debate surrounding bus subsidies. Subsidies for public transport are a well-known and frequently-used policy tool directed at reducing the high environmental and social costs of peak-period traffic congestion. But at the end of last year the Swedish Centre for Transport Studies published a working paper entitled ‘Should buses still be subsidised in Stockholm?’ This concluded that the subsidy levels currently being applied in Stockholm could be nearly halved by setting bus
  • Audi Urban Future Award – mobility of the future
    December 8, 2014
    The Audi Urban Future Award aims to stimulate new visions for cities and urban mobility; research collaborations with academic and cultural institutions worldwide; interactive events and workshops that bring together experts from many fields; and an internal interdepartmental think tank dedicated to issues of urban mobility. According to Audi, by 2050 two-thirds of all people will be living in large cities, a development which will pose major challenges for society and raises the question: what will be t
  • Wireless - the future of vehicle detection
    July 23, 2012
    Peter Cattell of Clearview Traffic analyses different wireless communications methods and explains how these are changing the face of vehicle detection. With the continued expansion of traffic data collection solutions, providing a robust, reliable, scalable and secure method of collecting information becomes increasingly important. Over many years, various mobile wireless technologies have been utilised to make the remote collection of data a reality but recent developments are changing the way that this w