Posted on 08/20/2008 1:36:44 PM PDT by Red Badger
Confronted by multi-dimensionsal changes in its underlying ecosystem, automakers should focus on five key areas of differentiation to position themselves for success in 2020 and beyond.
Summary
The automotive ecosystem is in the midst of significant change, with increasing challenges in consumer demands, technology development, globalization, integration and collaboration. A new era is rapidly approaching in which the very definition of personal mobility will change. Multi-modal transportation will become increasingly common, and intelligent vehicles will cater to diverse consumer needs for information, environmental responsibility and safety. Automotive companies are racing to develop new business models to help them maintain responsible growth. In this dynamic new age, we believe, a focus on the development of compelling personal mobility solutions, retail transformation, global execution and extensive partnering will be the keys to success in 2020.
Abstract
The automotive industry is in a state of flux. Automakers, along with their partners, must respond to the changing dynamics of how automobiles will be manufactured, purchased, distributed and serviced.
* Consumers will be more empowered and sophisticated. They will also become increasingly watchful and wary about how companies perform outside the manufacturing and distribution processes. Corporate social responsibility will become markedly more important to the consumer. * A global infrastructure will essentially be in place. Collaboration throughout the automotive value net will be a necessity. * The impact of external forces on the industry will continue to be significant, but the leading influencers will be radically different from those that affect the industry today. Technology will continue lead, but other issues, such as sustainability, will migrate to near the top of the list.
Ultimately, automotive companies must anticipate a new competitive landscape, rapidly evolving technologies, a departure from the traditional ecosystem, fresh attitudes about mobility and, above all, a very different con-sumer.
Change abounds As industry priorities shift, success will manifest itself through five key dimensions.
1. Sophisticated consumer – Automotive consumers of 2020 will be highly informed, demanding, impatient and environmentally conscious. They will redefine mobility as we now know it. Ownership models will change and consumers will want comprehensive “transportation services”. 2. The intelligent vehicle – Electronics will bring new capabilities to every part of the vehicle. New technologies will provide for greater assistance in navigation, enhanced driver information about the vehicle, its environment and vehicle connectivity. 3. Dynamic operations – Emerging as a winner in 2020 will require an innovation-led approach to multiple factors, including growth strategies, the workforce, redefinition of “core” businesses and proactive flexibility. 4. The integrated enterprise – The pursuit of the sophisticated consumer, development of intelligent vehicles and the transformation to dynamic operations will be wrapped in a new integrated enterprise that breaks from the past and is appealing to new talent the industry is seeking to attract 5. Interdependent ecosystem – Winning in the marketplace starts with the ability to work with other industry ecosystems to identify innovative solutions quickly. The relentless push to work with other industries will bring differentiating mobility solutions to consumers
Five imperatives will guide Automotive executives must accurately, effectively and quickly assess the level of commitment required by their respective companies to succeed. With the pace of change accelerating, time could be running out. We believe five imperatives will separate the outperformers from the rest in the automotive world of 2020.
1. Advance mobility – Auto companies must embrace new mobility models and use them as profit generators. They should stake a claim in new ownership and usage models, develop cost of transportation options (including innovative pricing models) and integrate various modes of transportation. 2. Transform retail – The automotive industry should transform its retail model by finding new ways to connect with sophisticated consumers and developing a new value proposition for dealerships. 3. Simplify complexity – Companies must standardize processes and architecture to allow for innovation to proliferate across and beyond the traditional automotive industry. 4. Partner extensively – The successful company of 2020 will need to extend outside the industry for innovation and will work with others to solve common issues. To do so will require the industry to reevaluate what is core and find business partners that complement them. Automakers will need to engage in collective partnering to solve such issues as vehicle energy consumption. 5. Execute globally – Effective global execution requires harnessing the power of a workforce throughout its geographically dispersed footprint to bring innovation in products and services faster than ever before. The key drivers include adapting to the multiplex workforce, balancing and flexing operations and harmonizing with local economies.
The time is now In just a dozen years, the automotive industry will be remarkably different from today – perhaps, even, unrec-ognizably so. Time is of the essence. Organizations must act – aggressively, actively and with immediacy – to create clarity beyond the chaos within their respective worlds.
To read the full report, download the PDF file at the top of this page
(Confronted by multi-dimensionsal changes in its underlying ecosystem, automakers )
When people speak like this wouldn’t you just love to shove their finger in a light socket?
Those three people probably have a whole bunch of letters after their names...................
It’s gonna be quite interesting in the coming decade. We’re going to go from just gas powered cars to various hybrid configs, E85, hydrogen, natural gas, biodiesel, etc.
Diesel hybrids, Natural Gas hybrids, compressed air hybrids, but all hybrids nonetheless.............
I am still waiting for the cars that would drive themselves, to make getting to and fro a pleasure...you know the ones that were predicted about 40 years ago.
Choices will be quite varied, and it may depend on where you live.
Fact is, if our domestic automakers can get their collective shyte together, they have a huge opportunity to reinvent personal travel.
Gotta love the free market.
When I read it I assumed the writer meant that consumers were NOT THAT NOW!........;^)
Demanding and impatient, check.
Highly informed, buzz.
LOL!
That article/report is so horribly written that it reminds me of sitting in a conference room playing “Buzzword Bingo”.
“...multiplex workforce...” BINGO!
Multi-modal transportation paradigm changes will necessarily be driven not by the marketplace but by the exigencies of the increasingly desperate depletion of available sources by the disproportionate utilization of the exploiting nations and, as such, will require the registration of any inventoried resource from the geological level to the ordinary light switch if mankind is to see the dawn of another century.
Therefore, all unnecessary insertion of unsuitable devices in unused resources, or other similar unauthorized uses, shall be prohibited under Sec.#115 para 2,3,6,9 and 1000000022.
Accidental contact during times of civil unrest or natural disaster in violation of this regulation will be evaluated on a case by case basis.
Multi-modal transportation paradigm changes will necessarily be driven not by the marketplace but by the exigencies of the increasingly desperate depletion of available sources by the disproportionate utilization of the exploiting nations and, as such, will require the registration of any inventoried resource from the geological level to the ordinary light switch if mankind is to see the dawn of another century.
Therefore, all unnecessary insertion of unsuitable devices in unused resources, or other similar unauthorized uses, shall be prohibited under Sec.#115 para 2,3,6,9 and 1000000022.
Accidental contact during times of civil unrest or natural disaster in violation of this regulation will be evaluated on a case by case basis.
Civil unrest made me do it.
I see you remember those great Popular Mechanics covers... LOL!!
Two months ago oil was going up forever. I remember the death nell of the V-8 in a 1978 magazine. Global Cooling! Global Warming! Because the weather is not cyclical. But most things actually are cyclical.
Just because we're rushing to hybrids now, doesn't mean we will always like them. They might be an automotive dead-end. Barring some major breakthrough (which we can't foretell anyway), we might find that oil is still an available, efficient, fungible, source of energy in 2020. I'm looking forward to driving the 2020 Viper in my dotage.
>>(ALL hybrids by 2020)>>
Technology is nowhere near producing an electric motor that can drive a semi truck with 80,000 pound behind it for 12 hours per day, without stopping to recharge. Unless the government does what McCain did on a larger scale regarding financial incentive for developing alternative energy for vehicles, they will become more fuel efficient but will not eliminate fossil fuels.
Rather than building hybrids with large batteries it makes sense to embed inductive power lines into the roads of high volume routes. The power could be bought and sold as cars speed or brake. Hydrocarbon fuel would be used for off grid driving. The electric power would come from whatever technology is cheapest at the time. The power lines could act as guides to auto-steer the cars and the cars could communicate through the power line to form virtual trains. We’d have the fuel efficiency and capacity of trains with the freedom of automobiles. The main thing preventing progress on this is the John Edwards industry.
I feel much better now that I know the central planners are on the job.
Reeses,
I suggested this concept to a group of engineers with the WA Department of Transportation 6 years ago. I suggested that a system of pods and powered rails under vehicles could not only control traffic patterns and eliminate accidents in congested areas, but also reduce pollution by 80% in those locales. They all perked up until I paralelled my concept to the movie ‘Minority Report’ and it’s use of urban transportation.
They laughed it off as too expensive. Well great, which do you want people, a system unreliant on fossil fuels OR cheap? You’re cannot have both. Haven’t heard a word from them...
A fully loaded semi trailer running down the highway at 70mph requires an average of 150kw of energy.
Allowing for a bathroom or lunch break for the driver every 4 hours, a super capacitor of 600kwh could handle the job, since it can be completely recharged in 10 minutes.
A 600kwh super capacitor pack would weigh roughly 4,000 lbs but that is very workable, since 18 Hi-Pa wheelmotors would weigh only 900 lbs and be replacing a diesel engine drivetrain that weighs 4,000 lbs and 200 gallons of fuel that weighed 1500 lbs. Very little net weight change for an all-electric semi. Charging stations capable of 4MW output would be the only infrastructure change needed. A “fill-up” would cost only $120 compared to the $300 that 70 gallons of diesel currently costs.
I used to have multimodal transportation.
Shanks’s mare; bicycle; bus, if I could find one running where & when I needed it; taxi—rarely affordable; thumbing.
Then I turned 16; that was 46 years ago, and I never want to return to those bad old days.
There are so many nice American cars that would be just brilliant with a nice 2.5L TurboDiesel from MB or equivalent. Toyota has a very nice 1.8, VW, BMW, Audi, Alfa-Romeo, FIAT, Peugeot, Nissan ... all offer very nice Diesel family cars with 45mpg+ potential ...except here.
The present recumbent in the WH ought to do away with this plethora of conflicting state regulations and encourage small, modern Diesel smoke-less engines. Detroit can't spell "Diesel" and GW can't spell "Ëxecutive Order." Every government vehicle should be a Diesel. And before George goes back to the ranch, he should end this boutique fuel horseshiite, which makes every big city's gas different.
R-134, banned lead shot, trick gasoline, even tricker Diesel fuel (now featuring cow piss injection) are all based on plain stupid science and cause more harm than good. Hybrids? Well, OK, if you insist, but makém Diesel hybrids.
Ultimately GM is doing it right. Their Volt model sets the stage for a smooth transition away from gas combustion. Toyota is hanging onto gas combustion but just making it more efficient.
Electric drivetrains are the future.
Been sayin' that for years..............
..very good important point!
After all they burn as much as any other sector, maybe more, what's up with that?
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