The 6 Paradigms Of The Automotive Industry Transformation, As Defined By ABI Research

There are big changes coming to the automotive industry over the next couple of decades, which is something that even relatively entrenched industry execs are seemingly starting to realize. What exactly are these changes though? And how to define them?

A list of 6 primary transformative paradigms affecting the industry over the next quarter-century were recently defined and outlined by ABI Research, giving us perhaps some new means of answering those questions.

While the future influence of autonomous driving technology and electrification on the automotive industry is a simple enough thing to speculate about, some of the other approaching paradigm shifts are perhaps a bit more opaque.

The 6 “transformative paradigms” identified by ABI Research are electrification; driverless technology/car-sharing, the “software-defined car,” the “connected car,” sensors + big data, and cooperative mobility + the internet of things.

The Managing Director and Vice President at ABI Research, Dominique Bonte, commented: “The final three stages — cooperative mobility, electrification, and car sharing leading to driverless cars — will be the most disruptive to the automotive industry. Not all car manufacturers will survive the changing landscape. And newcomers will also emerge, ones eager to create new, software-defined, high-tech cars.”

Which is I suppose what companies such as Apple and Google are positioning themselves for.

Green Car Congress provides more:

While the first three phases are already underway, the latter three will start to drive the market forward within the next 10 years, according to the market research firm.

Car manufacturers are currently revamping vehicles’ electronics and networking architecture to ensure every sub-system is connected and software-defined. Moving toward the next decade, the automotive industry will achieve cooperative mobility. Cars will communicate with not only each other but also infrastructures and environments. Electrification will then change the way consumers power their vehicles. And, lastly, car sharing, and driverless cars, will likely lead to market consolidation.

Through this industry fluctuation, there will be a number of opportunities for manufacturers and vendors to reinvent themselves, ABI said.

A couple of points that were made with regard to that:

• “Gas stations will need to rethink their market strategy and offer new services, such as electric charging stations, or risk losing their relevance completely.”
• “Taxi companies are already feeling the rising pressure, meeting stiff competition from Uber and other new car sharing services.”
• “Dealerships and insurance vendors also face potential upset.”
• “Semiconductors and software companies, on the other hand, have a huge future, as cars continue to incorporate more sensors and computing technologies into their architectures.”

One would think that with the shifting ground becoming more and more apparent, established auto-manufacturers would be putting more of an effort into staying ahead of the curve, but that largely doesn’t appear to be the case. Though perhaps there’s more going on behind closed doors than we are aware of?

Image Credit: ABI Research