Yeh Yeh Yeh - I'm Fully Up For The Connected-Autonomus-Shared-Electric Gig! - But What If The Interweb Breaks?

Yep! Unless you meet your maker today you're a day older tomorrow!

That's a promise.

So - you'll probably get to be a senior citizen sometime - and then what?

Back in 2012 when Steve Mahan famously popped out in a driverless Google car (well a Toyota Prius actually) to pick up a Burrito, it seemed fanciful we'd have that option in cars on the road just 4 years later...

I've tootled along in a Model S on Autopilot a few times this year - I now know why Steve was smiling on his way to Taco Bell!

This moment was a monumental milestone in suggesting both the moral imperative and a massive commercial market in the making for vehicle autonomy!

In regards to EV's - The Disruptors have been learning the hard way about just how difficult, costly, and time consuming it is to be build a vehicle, and The Incumbents have been caught with their pants down by just how quick the EV proposition has taken shape.

Meanwhile the IOT has opened up like a giant umbrella!

100 years of relative automotive inertia about to be turned upside down within a tenth of that time. A Decade of Disruption now well underway...

Just like telecommunications, just like computing, just like retail. And many others...

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

A global-consuming-connecting-converging human population - the like of which we have never seen!

Flippin' heck!

So much of Life on Earth is cyclical of course...but this is not!

• An ageing and/or immobile population...
• A cheek by jowl urban lifestyle...
• An unpredictable and potentially catastrophic climate...

Unintended consequences of it all abound, and like never before we desperatly need the super smart, super rich change commanders to step up to the plate. Politicians, both good and bad - will come and go.

However, the likes of Branson, Gates, Zuckerberg, Kalanick, Brin, Bezos & Co are all shaping up a more sustainable world - for the long haul.

They are making The World Great Again!

Add to that (unexhaustive) list some of the new 'contrarians' I've written about recently - see here for '21st Century Global Communism'...no need to panic btw that's not a political declaration!

OK, I know I'm inclined to rabbit on a bit about the EV enterprise - but the arrival of the cavalry in the shape of other stuff - Connectivity, Autonomy, Solar Energy, and Shared Platforms, is really exciting me now!

The combination of it all is why the EV market is accelerating faster than NEXTEV's EP9! - that just smashed it btw at the Nürburgring Nordschliefe...

These technologies/markets combined are the 'New Energy New World Building Blocks' of all our tomorrow's. WIP or otherwise - it's all hurtling towards us all at warp speed.

But.

What about the nitty gritty of it all?

I outlined all this 'progress' to my 82 year old Mother recently...

She asked, where will all the robot vehicles be kept, who will clean them, what happens if the internet goes down?

She's smart my mum - and she was the first in the family to drive an electric vehicle!

Dividing assets into 365 and 24/7 will be when things get really interesting then!

That notion inclines me to look around and see who's great at logistics - both online and hands-on. For sure there are many companies who know how to put it all together. A chain of events that identifies the weakest link and then eradicates it.

I've worked with a few of these folks, including FedEx and UPS.

They move stuff not from A to B but from A to Z. They operate some of the largest airlines in the world, they operate some of the largest ground fleets on the planet, and they drive billions of miles every year. Everything is tracked, monitored, measured, and costed to within an inch of its life!

Maybe the well established Dealer Networks would have a re-aligned role to play in it all - now there's a thought!

Rental Car Companies are quite impressive too, it could be said that they have been running a plain vanilla system with the park and ride model in relation to the tutti fruity 'flavour' of forever roving robo-vehicles.

Electronics Companies are being pressed like never before to innovate and liberate the fast emerging Internet of Things. Power hungry devices need feeding fast, and as I witnessed first-hand in Munich recently, there are some amazing players in this arena - epic mergers and acquisitions are testimony to the task at hand.

So looking forward to CES in January - that's the Consumer Electronics Show aka the Connected Electric Show. That's THE place where much of this stuff meets up for a 'handshake' - and so much more besides.

So, as I see it, not all industries and companies will be swept aside by the turning of an epic tide of change.

Some will reap monumental reward as they deliver the nitty gritty part of Elon & Co's 'Grand Tour' - they have the top gear - the technology - the talent.

What happens next?

I can see several more mega JV's on the horizon as the shock of the new matches up with the best of the old. Expected the Unexpected. We are all destined for surprising encounters.

Meanwhile, my Mother is still worries about the Internet falling over!...

Thanks for reading and feel free to share

Roger

www.electricvehiclesoutlook.com