4. Are electric cars and alternative fuels our future? How we can benefit from that?
Whoever in the automotive industry is still questioning the future of alternative fuels is already 10-years behind the trends and pioneers. Think part of the bigger puzzle. For example EVs and AVs are only tiny puzzle pieces of the automotive enigma. Think bigger for better results i.e. Smart Mobility.
As a trend, smart mobility is only going in two directions – upwards and onwards. We really are just scratching the surface. If collectively, all the on-demand mobility services we see today make up Mobility 1.0, then Mobility 2.0 is already upon us. This next step will be characterised by increasing uptake of automotive specialisation, niche offerings and a focus on the customer experience. Beyond this, Mobility 3.0 will be enabled by disruptive technologies, where we will see the wide adoption of fully autonomous vehicles and blockchain-enabled fractional ownership models.
As smart mobility solutions continue to take hold, governments and established players will face a dual challenge of needing to upgrade or invest in new infrastructures, and at the same time seeing the profit-margins decline. Business models for Automotive 4.0 and Mobility 3.0 services will look very different from today. For innovators in the automotive space, perhaps now is the time to partner with infrastructure planners and help define services customers really want, and need. Now is the time to reserve your seat at the table!
5. What are the security issues when it comes to latest technology?
There have been major security issues for over 20 years! And it’s only going to get worst – UNFORTUNATELY.
But my general opinion towards the majority of problems you always have to simplify and go back to the root. With this though in mind Blockchain and other technologies can be major security advantages in dealing with trust and transparency issues.
Like every new disruptive technology, there will be ups and downs before Blockchain 2.0 is fully integrated into Automotive 4.0. But, nonetheless, Blockchain 2.0 seems to have a vital role in the future of Mobility 3.0. The industry hopes that blockchain can transform – decentralized ownership, supply chain transparency, consortium trust by-design, increased safety, communication security – into reality soon. Blockchain 2.0 offers Automotive 4.0 and Mobility 3.0 the opportunity to simplify. Therefore, bring simplicity and speed to complex and slow automotive systems, while massively reducing the costs to run infrastructures.
6. What are right now quality components and products for Automotive Industry?
Again stop thinking about components and products on their own. Think BIGGER PICTURE! I always pushed for a ‘Revolution, Not Evolution’ strategy in automotive.
Beyond business and economics, disruptive automotive innovations should also be considered to disrupt complex systems and supply chains, including economic and business-related aspects. This is the secret recipe to legacy industries. Revolution, not evolution! And for that to happen, so many times, I had to personally move outside the box, join the dark side of technology – also known as development – and rise from the ashes of innovation. I forced myself to think less like a strategic corporate CEO and embraced more the art of the agile startup CTO. More software, less hardware mastermind.
Cars, being a form of social relationship, always evolved. No car technology remained fixed. Automotive technologies started, developed, persisted, mutated, stagnated, and declined. Just like living organisms. It was a vicious cycle. The automotive evolutionary life cycle occurs in the use and development of any new technology. The problem the automotive industry is facing is not technology evolution. The problem is society and generation revolution. New versions of the mobility core are designed and fitted into an increasingly appropriate urban ecosystem, with smaller and smaller automotive high-technology effects and lifecycles. Automotive high technology always became automotive regular technology, with more efficient versions fitting the same components and systems. Old habits die hard! But millennials are ruthless creatures.
Eventually, efficiency gains diminish, emphasis shifts to commodity product attributes, and technology evolution is no longer sufficient to feed a new generation of millennial consumers that despise the premise of car ownership. This new automotive equilibrium state is becoming established and fixated as a mobility revolution, the market is resisting being interrupted by yet another new technological mutation; only accepting a new mobility order. New disruptive automotive innovation, when accomplished successfully at a technology and business level, will even impact successful, well-managed players that are responsible for their customers and have excellent research and development departments.
7. How you/your company are contributing to the industry?
The automotive world of the future will be an even more demanding struggle against the global limitations of mobility, not a comfortable hammock in which we can lie down hoping for miracles from our existing infrastructures.
I seriously came to the notice of wary automotive players in January 2000 – YES, 20 YEARS AGO – in the wake a panic of the Y2K virus – and set the cause of decent behaviour in the automotive industry forward twenty years.
As a professional responsible for strategies related to automotive supply chains and technologies worldwide I always gave a sublimely unbiased account of my exploits as an industry visionary with the introduction of new business models. My last 100% legacy-dedicated effort to change the automotive industry was in 2017, and that’s when I realised that the automotive industry needed a lot more than just advice.
It needed an urgent bypass if it was ever going to survive the transaction of car ownership to a mobility alignment. The sky was falling on deaf ears around the automotive industry. For all automotive professionals reading this, I will repeat, in case you haven’t noticed, the sky is falling. Not to dislike, not to oppose; I was fed up, fed up of repeating myself, and fed up with the idleness and apathy of many automotive leaders.
The automotive elite needs to feasibly and timely transform fresh automotive business ideas into reality. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and the current state of the automotive industry requires major players to make tough decisions; quickly and efficiently. Therefore, elite decision makers have to look beyond just methodologies of theory and focus on what really counts – progressive action. Agile innovation and development of disruptive technologies is needed.
So, last year, I was part of a team at TechHQ that developed a proof-of-concept project code-named ‘insiġ’ based on Blockchain technology, that will one day revolutionize the automotive industry, by connecting automotive verticals to distribute value far beyond vehicle physical attributes and lifecycle.
‘insiġ’ is a supply chain tracking and payments distribution platform, which allows suppliers to participate in the revenue streams originating from their products as a service. In an automotive market being disrupted by electrification, mobility services and autonomous driving ‘insiġ’ will marks the difference between dominance and obsolescence.
We wanted to change how the world moves and give credit where credit is due. With ‘insiġ’ we will accelerate the mobility transition, upgrade the global vehicle fleet and distribute value fairly across supply chains. A sustainable future cannot be built on ownership models and with ‘insiġ’ we are empowering the visionaries to act.
‘insiġ’ allows the creation of new business models that directly connect manufacturers with consumers in deep networks of value creation and revenue distribution. It records the manufacturing of assets and value creation through multiple industrial and knowledge suppliers, tracking both the asset itself and the value it represents.
While physical assets change hands, the ownership of the value flows can be retained by the manufacturer and used in complex business models. ‘insiġ’distributes the revenue from consumer services to the suppliers according to the value provided by each one of them.
Bonus question: What kind of automobile do you drive and how did you choose it?
I am a classic car-guy – anything nostalgic from the last century. More mechanicals, less electronics.
Plus, for the last two decades I’ve been a huge advocate for sustainability and 360º cradle-to-cradle product lifecycles.
Making a new car creates as much carbon pollution as driving it, so it’s often better to keep your old car on the road than to upgrade to a greener model. This coming from an automotive industry car-guy sounds crazy, but I am not hypocrite. I have to do what I preach and believe in. With humanity threatening to harm our planet to the point of no return, it’s important that we each do our bit to help the environment in whatever way we can. Plus, mobility is a positive step in the right direction.
But, I LOVE DRIVING. So at the moment I have quite a collection of cars from the 60s right through the 90s. Just for the fun of it. Right now I get most of my kicks from a tiny little feisty beast of a Ford Puma from 1997. Call me crazy, but it makes sense in my head!
