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If the technological march of autonomous and shared cars continues as has been predicted, then it spells all but the end of mass-market car sales in Europe. Vehicle and ride sharing could trigger the number of cars privately owned in Europe to fall by as much as 29 per cent in the next 12 years, according to research by Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC).
However, overall, global sales will continue to rise, say PwC's analysts. By the same 2030 date, European sales are predicted to climb by 34 per cent, US sales by 20 per cent, and Chinese car sales by 30 per cent. Why? Because the cars will be purchased by autonomous ride-sharing services, in the main.
An ever-increasing proportion of the world's cars will be found in China by then. The Chinese national car park is expected to climb by some 50 per cent in the same period, while Europe's will fall - from 280 million cars now, to around 200 million cars by 2030. The fall, in spite of rising sales, will come as people give up their older cars in favour of using ride-sharing.
That will be of some serious concern to car makers whose sales efforts are still largely focused on Europe. Car sharing and automation, while it has occasionally been predicted as opening the floodgates of vehicle usage to those who currently don't, won't, or can't drive will inevitably mean that fewer older cars will be replaced, and eventually fewer new cars will be needed. PwC predicts that while vehicle ownership may fall, congestion and traffic could become ever worse in the short-to-medium term. "In only a few years' time, today's norm where most people drive themselves in their own vehicle will only be one mobility concept among many," Christoph Stürmer, global lead analyst at PwC Autofacts told CompleteCar. The PwC study anticipates that as early as 2030, more than one in three kilometres driven will be under one of the many forms of 'sharing.'
PwC predicts that the electric car will have achieved sales dominance by then, with some 55 per cent of the market, and that car sharing will take off far faster in China than here in Europe. "The various different trends will reinforce each other" says Stürmer. "For instance, electric vehicles are less susceptible to failure thanks to their simpler power train - which is a significant advantage where vehicles are being shared and used more intensively. Self-driving cars, in turn, could effectively become 'robotaxis' if they are combined with sharing concepts."
The increasing uptake of shared vehicle services by those who might currently use public transport could see personal car mileage in Europe increase by as much as 23 per cent, to 5.88 billion kilometres per year. The US is expected to see a similar rise of 24 per cent, while China's figure is expected to boom by a massive 183 per cent.
"The roads will definitely become more full, but not chaotic", says Stürmer. "Thanks to increasing connectivity, individual traffic will be much easier to organise in the future." The PwC report does not, sadly, extend to a study of how such a dramatic move to increased shared vehicle use may affect public transport systems, and whether those systems may become starved of fares.
The saving grace for the car industry may be that very surge in mileage, and the increased wear and tear on components not least because autonomous 'robotaxis' will have to make many empty journeys, from dropping off one user to picking up the next. That will certainly mean that there will need to be additional expansions in manufacturing capacity, and investments in new technology, but the end product will probably have to be sold at lower prices, as the primary customers will shift from private users to fleet operators. "Automotive groups and their suppliers will have to make critical decisions in the years ahead," believes Stürmer. "On the one hand, while they will have to contend with falling margins - mainly due to pressure from the major fleet operators - at the same time they will have to significantly increase their investment in new factories, electro-mobility and the other megatrends."
There's a final, gloomy prediction for the current big automotive companies - that the share of global profits currently enjoyed by 'conventional players' which right now stand at 85 per cent, will fall to as little as 50 per cent as innovative start-ups and 'disruptors' take hold of the market. Stürmer's forecast is therefore that "in this scenario, the only companies that can survive in the long-term are either those that prevail as a clear innovation leader on the product side, or those that recognise that mobility is no longer a product, but rather a service and offer their customers comfortable and low-priced offerings that are simple to use - in other words, offerings that make their life easy."