6 Primary Transformative Paradigms For The Auto Industry
Originally published on EV Obsession.
There are big changes coming to the automotive industry over the next couple of decades, which is something that even relatively entrenched industry execs are seemingly starting to realize. What exactly are these changes though? And how to define them?
A list of 6 primary transformative paradigms affecting the auto industry over the next quarter-century were recently defined and outlined by ABI Research, giving us perhaps some new means of answering those questions.
While the future influence of autonomous driving technology and electrification on the automotive industry is a simple enough thing to speculate about, some of the other approaching paradigm shifts are perhaps a bit more opaque.
The 6 “transformative paradigms” identified by ABI Research are electrification; driverless technology/car-sharing, the “software-defined car,” the “connected car,” sensors + big data, and cooperative mobility + the internet of things.
The Managing Director and Vice President at ABI Research, Dominique Bonte, commented: “The final three stages — cooperative mobility, electrification, and car sharing leading to driverless cars — will be the most disruptive to the automotive industry. Not all car manufacturers will survive the changing landscape. And newcomers will also emerge, ones eager to create new, software-defined, high-tech cars.”
Which is I suppose what companies such as Apple and Google are positioning themselves for.
Green Car Congress provides more:
While the first three phases are already underway, the latter three will start to drive the market forward within the next 10 years, according to the market research firm.
Car manufacturers are currently revamping vehicles’ electronics and networking architecture to ensure every sub-system is connected and software-defined. Moving toward the next decade, the automotive industry will achieve cooperative mobility. Cars will communicate with not only each other but also infrastructures and environments. Electrification will then change the way consumers power their vehicles. And, lastly, car sharing, and driverless cars, will likely lead to market consolidation.
Through this industry fluctuation, there will be a number of opportunities for manufacturers and vendors to reinvent themselves, ABI said.
A couple of points that were made with regard to that:
- “Gas stations will need to rethink their market strategy and offer new services, such as electric charging stations, or risk losing their relevance completely.”
- “Taxi companies are already feeling the rising pressure, meeting stiff competition from Uber and other new car sharing services.”
- “Dealerships and insurance vendors also face potential upset.”
- “Semiconductors and software companies, on the other hand, have a huge future, as cars continue to incorporate more sensors and computing technologies into their architectures.”
One would think that with the shifting ground becoming more and more apparent, established auto-manufacturers would be putting more of an effort into staying ahead of the curve, but that largely doesn’t appear to be the case. Though perhaps there’s more going on behind closed doors than we are aware of?
Image Credit: ABI Research
Reprinted with permission.
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An exec with the leading microprocessor design shop ARM – they outsell Intel many times in the embedded and mobile markets – was quoted as saying that a contemporary car may already have 40 processors. Certainly ARM is putting a big effort into the car market, with its needs for high reliability and prospective huge increases in power.
But IBM TrueNorth neural processor and MIT recently announced neural Eyeriss processor, both have been partly financed by Darpa.
Neural processors with Deep learning software, will make self driving and autonomous vehicles much more faster in video recognition and much more power efficient, than ARM multi cores.
These are the buzzwords which have been the future for 40 years. I don’t believe it.
There is more going on behind closed doors…..read about the Shell Prelude project and see on you tube how transition from gasoline to LNG will take place in the pacific ocean,huge reserves for the cheap and clean hydrogen production proces (Stanford method 82 % efficiency) will deliver hydrogen for the next gen EV..In Germany Shell is constructing 200 filling stations alongside the autobahn before 2020 for a cleaner future,…..
“Gasoline to LNG” trading one hydrocarbon for another. Did you just cut n paste an advertisement for Shell oil company?
And just what are they planning to do with the C portion of all that CH4 they’re proposing to unbury?
Astonishing. LIGHTWEIGHTING will, by far, be the most transformative new paradigm in the transportation sector. It will affect land, sea and air transportation—-cars, SUVs, pickups, and long distance trucks, as well as light rail, trains, ships and planes—-not simply cars. Perhaps we need to try, if possible, to stop fetishizing each new instance of an “advanced” technology as if it were a value in itself and look, rather, at what is most essential for our future as a civilization if we are to have a future: decarbonization, which, long before we ever achieve a 100% renewable and sustainable energy economy in the future, will be achieved little by little through radical new energy efficiency measures in the present. The lightweighting of the materials used in land, sea and air transportation via the use of carbon fiber composites, fiber glass, aluminum and magnesium will achieve FAR MORE RADICAL EFFICIENCIES than any of the high tech paradigms that are mentioned in this article. The 1754 lb VW XL1 is not even as fully lightweighted as it could be, yet it already gets 260 mpg on diesel, or MORE THAN TEN TIMES the mileage of the average American car, thereby, in the meantime, making the coming gradual transition to EVs run on decarbonized electricity to some degree irrelevant, as welcome as it will surely be. No “transformative” paradigm that is mentioned in this article will come even remotely as close to achieving the VW XL1’s astonishing new degree of energy efficiency. Decarbonized electrification will simply put the icing on the cake, which will be made of layers of carbon fiber composites, fiber glass and light metals. Car sharing, for instance, may eventually achieve significant new energy efficiencies, through a reduction in the amount of embodied carbon in the land transportation fleet, but this will take time. A current lightweight vehicle that already gets 260 mpg on diesel—and that could easily be lightweighted even further to get better mileage—-makes the future and still only potential energy efficiencies of the other transportation paradigms that are mentioned here seem like “also rans.” Eventually, once the entire grid is renewable and sustainable, mainly as a result of the introduction of wind farms and solar arrays, then the total decarbonization of car transportation that may some day result from 100% electrification may, to some degree at least, begin to rival the degree of decarbonization that has ALREADY BEEN ATTAINED by the current VW XL1, which is not even as lightweight as it could be. We may need to stop fetishizing anything and everything that is “high tech” and, instead, keep our eye on the ball: i.e., on achieving immediate and radical energy efficiency and thus on achieving the most rapid “back door” decarbonization process that is possible. All of the new paradigms above can help contribute to a transformation of the land transportation fleet in favor of sustainability. None of them, however, will be as essential as lightweighting to achieving, in the near future, a stunning new degree of energy efficiency and decarbonization in LAND, SEA and AIR transportation at the same time. If any website in the world needs to be emphasizing this far more often than it is now, it is CleanTechnica.
Gas stations can’t just turn into electric charging stations. EV charging can be done in parking areas nearer shopping where gas stations cannot.
So conversion is less likely, although some stations are not far away. With a considerable investment in parts and repair, and in pumps, gas stations stand to have stranded investment in useless hardware.
There will be some pain as new tech replaces old. Phone booths were simply removed.
Gas stations will become environmental reclamation sites. Big project to dig out those tanks and clean up contaminated soil, but there’s already an EPA program to deal with underground tanks.