Electrification, tech and autonomous driving may now upend an industry used only to slow change
The road from rickety contraptions of wood and iron to self-driving supercomputers on wheels has had many twists and turns. The latest upheavals are perhaps the most profound since Carl Benz’s brainwave. The size, reach and impact of the car industry on personal mobility will change. If the eventual outcome of today’s trade tensions and subsidy wars is deglobalisation, the arrival of new entrants may raise costs and reduce efficiency, making cars less affordable and the industry less efficient.
Yet a more optimistic forecast is that startups and new Chinese entrants will force every other carmaker to speed up electrification, to bring forward software that makes journeys better, and to provide more ways to use and pay for trips by car. This could forge a new relationship with the car as a pleasant place to work and play as well as a way to get from A to B. .
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