I was impressed by this article, How to Worry about Climate Change. It was neither activist nor skeptical, but rather placed the threat in an appropriate policy context. So, I was inspired to update my earlier post on the “mobility revolution.”
McKinsey has some new research out which, I feel, overstates the case. The case, as you may recall, is that four trends will come together in some kind of perfect storm:
- Electrification
- Connectivity
- Autonomous driving
- Shared mobility
The best research on mobility is still this series of papers from the BCG. Like me, BCG is reserved about the U.S. market. I strawman McKinsey a little by focusing on U.S. car dealers. Their focus is on manufacturers, with a European orientation.
The right way to worry about mobility is to ignore the interaction effects, and look at each trend individually. This is where I differ from McKinsey. They model three different outcomes – small, medium, and large – for each of the four trends. This gives them eighty-one different scenarios to evaluate (consultants love this stuff).
Electric Cars
My local BMW dealer has a lot full of i3s and i8s. Electric cars won’t change auto retail at all – service, obviously, but not sales. This “revolution” only affects dealers if Tesla succeeds in doing it without a dealer network. From my perspective, not having a dealer network is a weakness, and a sign that the company lacks confidence in its product.
Connectivity
It turns out Jacques Nasser was right. Kids today will ride in a hamster box as long as it has satellite, wireless, navigation, and a sound system. Gone is my generation’s enthusiasm for hemi heads and dual overhead cams. No one drives a stick anymore, and the steering wheel will be next (see below).
Connectivity will change auto retail the same way electric cars will – new features to sell and service. I have the BMW connectivity app on my iPhone. Connectivity in terms of telematics will open up new opportunities for service retention, as I described here. There are new opportunities in F&I, and even lot management, as people invent more things to plug into the OBD port.
Autonomous Cars
I am deeply skeptical about self-driving cars. People who promote them tend to focus on SAE level four, and overlook the greater challenge of full autonomy. I see self-driving in limited contexts, like self-parking and advanced cruise control. Check out BMW’s lane-departure technology. This is cool stuff, and what it means to car dealers is … more expensive cars!
Remember that the nightmare scenario for self-driving cars only occurs when the cars are smart enough to be widely shared, i.e., robot Uber drivers. A car that can autonomously drive the kids to school is years and years away.
A close examination of the technologies required to achieve advanced levels of autonomous driving suggests a significantly longer timeline; such vehicles are perhaps five to ten years away.
Like “catastrophic anthropogenic global warming,” that date keeps moving out as we approach it. In 2012, Sergey Brin said self-driving cars would be widely available by 2018. In 2016, Mark Fields said no steering wheel by 2021. McKinsey, in any year, always says, “five to ten years from now.” For a clear-eyed look at the challenges, see here. For more about luxury driver assistance see here.
That about does it for my deconstruction of three mobility trends that should not worry car dealers. Next week, I’ll report on that fourth one. Now that I am living in a big, modern metropolis, I can see shared mobility first hand. I may not even need a second car.
Virag Consulting 