Quo vadis, automotive industry?

Like all other industries, the automotive industry is affected by changes through digitization. Connecting cars with mobile networks is one of the most important challenges, which has to be solved in order to be successful in today's modern mobility: in autonomous and assisted driving, in in-car entertainment and in intelligent traffic control. Quo vadis, automotive industry?

What’s your preference: cloud-based, swarm-intelligent systems for driving? Or the support of mainly autonomous cars? Those and other questions need to be answered. We are discussing them with German car manufacturers. We even want to intensify these discussions. And we receive valuable insights from outside of Germany. Right now, I'm in China. Together with our innovation lead Claudia Nemat (see picture below), Telekom Deutschland CEO Dirk W?ssner and some other Telekom managers we are visiting some car manufacturers who are rather unknown in Europe. For example BYD Auto. Or ELI, who manufacture modular, highly compact zero-emission vehicles. As well as NIO, whose EP9 model set records and whose ES7 model has been a huge bestseller in China. Chinese manufacturers develop their products, unlike other known players, from the software aspect. And there is no legacy - no "policy heritage" - which they have to consider.

The automotive industry faces huge changes. This matters especially in Germany as it makes up almost 20 percent of the manufacturing industry here. The Chinese manufacturers now enter the international markets with their good design, customer oriented controls (software!) and all in all fascinating e-cars. They make clear that they are interested in exporting to Europe and the US. So, Tesla is no longer the only luxury car provider within the e-mobility segment.

What's missing in China is the "Made in Germany" label, which has - despite of all gloomy predictions - has a good reputation worldwide. But: The Chinese competitors follow totally new sales and distribution strategies. NIO's showrooms are more than experience showrooms. They are a meeting place for customers and technophiles. Much happens faster than elsewhere. And for some things still considered as problems, they already offer solutions. Example #1: The configuration of a car via an app can be completed within three minutes and the car will be delivered after only 28 days. Example #2: The battery for long distance drives can be changed in just three minutes as well. This is the future of user experience.

One thing is for certain: We as Deutsche Telekom are ready to build our networks accordingly to the needs of various application scenarios. Including the mobility of the future. We discuss this along categories such as latency, capacity or coverage. The Chinese manufacturers already state clear expectations on this. They bet on pure autonomous vehicles which can be complemented by additional services. Sometimes they demand low latency (e.g. on heavily frequented streets or in city traffic). Sometimes it's about entertainment services demanding high bandwidths. Eric Xu from network equipment supplier Huawei has a similar take on this. He states that the mere autonomous driving does not need 5G and that the required technology is included on board of the vehicles themselves.

What becomes very clear after all our talks: there is no such thing as ONE connectivity. The challenge for 5G is the variety of applications and user demands. We are ready to create the appropriate interfaces within our network. Also with our 5G built-out. Variety counts. Because one size fits none.