Cars Shift to the Future
Mary Barra, chairwoman and chief executive of General Motors, said in 2015: “I believe we’ll see more change in the automotive industry in the next five to ten years than in the past fifty.” Then she added, “I have committed: We shall lead the transformation of our industry.”
She has been proven correct in the first part of her statement. The motor vehicle industry is undergoing a tremendous period of change. And Barra is making moves. GM will have a Cruise driverless car in a pilot program in San Francisco next year.
Elsewhere all is activity. Uber, the ride sharing service, will go public next year with a high-priced sale of stock. Tesla is busy producing electric car Model 3; its pioneering power train engineering and battery technology make it a valuable company. It looks to expand into China and South Korea is welcoming it.
Electric cars and trucks are the innovation of the coming decade. Forecasts are for 11 million electric cars on the road by 2025 and that is surely an understatement. China alone is pushing to have all electric motors on its roads, rather than the old internal combustion engine, to reduce its air pollution problems. Note however that predictions of millions of electric cars only start to replace today’s billions of gasoline-powered motors. So can we expect massive electric power plants to replace massive oil refineries? No, the future will belong to localized power; Honda is already bringing out a car with a fuel cell engine in which hydrogen is transformed into energy, leaving only emissions of heat and water.
Surely an exciting time for a century old industry. Legislation is moving through the U.S. Congress for self driving cars and trucks. “Current laws and regulations did not contemplate the concept of self driving vehicles,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, chair of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Opposing voices also are heard. None other than Ralph Nader is cautioning not to move too fast lest we become “Unsafe at Any Speed,”-- title of his book of 50 years ago. Not to worry, says Etan Chriqui, a car dealer in Torrance, CA., “self driving will come only slowly as there are wrinkles and complications to get through.”
Yet alternative futures gain notice. A company named Faraday Future, now headquartered in Hanford, WA., and backed by billionaires from China, will produce a self-driving model that will operate like a highway-trotting yacht with entertainment media and kitchen services inside. Other visions are even more provocative. John Zimmer, head of Lyft—the rival of Uber—foresees the end of car ownership as people old and young hop on autonomous roadsters for trips to the store or office. We may lament the old days of youngsters proud of their first wheels, but you don’t take pride in mass transit trains or trolleys, which have been around longer than cars.
CEO Barra is right: we are in a time of profound change, when Detroit is only a partner of Silicon Valley. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal told of Google coming with digital ideas to Detroit in 2011 but finding no interest from auto executives. Now Google is going to China and giving people mobility is the new mission. With change comes opportunity. Don’t dwell on the rear view mirror--look ahead!
Thank you. James Flanigan, author The Korean-American Dream, forthcoming Oct. 15 from University of Nevada Press.