During the last decades, private cars have been the way people used to move from point A to point B. Thanks to technology and the change of lifestyle of new users, new ways of transport have appeared such as car sharing, ride-hailing, bike sharing, e-scooter, … In parallel to these social changes, technology is enabling platforms to deliver these services and self-driving cars it’s becoming a reality as the technology is evolving extremely fast. These two trends are a combination that will completely disrupt the car and transportation industry as we understand nowadays.
The car industry and the transportation industry will need to seriously understand how their traditional business models will survive against this trend and how they will need to adapt if they can. This trend will not only be exclusive disruption to these industries, and aside industries that has been created to cover the needs of 100-year industry will also need to be rethink very fast such as:
Car insurance companies: in the coming years vehicles will become driverless and who will be the responsibility in case of an accident?
Parking industry: at the moment vehicles will not need drivers and there’s no real need to park, how will this industry adapt?
Real state: new areas to explore after reducing areas for parking (gardens, indoor farming, ....)
Still is not clear who will be the winners and the losers, most probably it will be defined as soon as we understand how each key player in this industry will adapt to its own challenges.
In the short-mid-term, maybe:
Winners: new platforms that offer aggregation of services
Losers: car manufacturer, car dealers, street bus (public and private)
In the mid-long term, perhaps they are:
Winners: driverless platforms as a service, real estate
Losers: car manufacturer will disappear as well know brand becoming a commodity, car dealers, users that are located in non-profitable spots, insurance companies
Although we most probably agree that this industry will be disrupted soon, body regulators and policy makers will need to work carefully to make sure the democratization of transport is accessible and affordable for all citizens and will not put on risk any part of society as mobility is part of the economic growth and social development of cities, urban and non-urban areas.
