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The future of the automotive industry

Bryan James

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Hey there guys, where do you think the automotive industry is headed within the next decade or so? I know a lot of people either have strong allegiance to Tesla while others are jumping ship on Tesla like it was the Titanic. Personally, I think Tesla has the chance to become the automotive king of the world, but not necessarily for a while honestly. GM has, in my opinion, a lot of competition and often gets hammered. Ford is better (as a company) but only slowly moving into the self-driving and electric sectors. What do you guys think?
 
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The Racing Driver

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I think we're going to see a lot more super-fast electric cars on the road, and self-driving cars as well. It's too hard to predict what will happen to individual companies though.
 

The Abundant Man

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I think we're going to see a lot more super-fast electric cars on the road, and self-driving cars as well. It's too hard to predict what will happen to individual companies though.
This right here is in my opinion inevitable.

Steve Jobs came out with the IPod around 2000. CD's stopped being the music medium. Around 2008, Apple came out with IPhone. There have been touch screen devices before. But the iphone revoltuionized the industry. Flip Phones are almost obsolete.

Even though Wall Street hates Tesla(because they haven't turned out a profit), they're still leading the way in terms of innovation. The other companies have been trying to copy Tesla this past decade.

When SpaceX came out, scientists thought it was unrealistic but at the same time they were excited because somebody is finally doing something about space for the first time in 2 decades. After the Falcon 1 rocket launched, Boeing and Lockheed Martin partnered up. Few years later, Richard Bransons created Virgin Galactic and they're launching SpaceShip One and SpaceShip Two for Space Tourism. Jeff Bezos is now doing Blue Origin.(They stole some employees from SpaceX lol) SpaceX is winning in terms of Government contracts. Falcon Heavy rocket with the Dragon Capsule finally made a successful dock on the ISS.

Moore's Law states:
Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles about every two years.

Meaning computers will just continue to get faster and faster.

The Automotive Industry has changed so much since the days of Henry Ford. Back in the 80's Toyota completely changed how car companies manufactured vehicles. Tesla is trying to do the same thing.

What happened to Blockbuster? They never adapted to the market. Netflix is now king and people are cord cutting.

Ed Catmull in Creativity Inc explains how Disney was having a difficult time for a while because they never adapted to change.

It is the future that we will have self driving electric vehicles whether the public likes it or not.
 

Cruze

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I think self drive airplane Taxis are possible, likewise self driving cars. This technik is going to Disrupt the industry I think. Not today, Sure Not tomorrow but in the next 10-20 years.
 
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Niptuck MD

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GM has, in my opinion, a lot of competition and often gets hammered.
GM Is a piece of shit. THey started making electric cars in the 90s but they are so deeply rooted with Big oil that they will likely be a nonfactor in the electric game until its too late. LIke the fact that GM paid the city of Los angeles almost half a million i think in the 90s to NOT construct a proper public transit for the 2nd biggest city in the nation!!!
So GM really CANT innovate or do anything due to their deep rooted ties to exxon and conoco philips etc.


THe funny thing is countries like Britain and germany to an extant wish to ban combustion engines as a whole but will this in all liklihood realistically happen? The rich will not stop driving 12 cylinder and rolls' etc. Its all a matter of perception. Supercars will still be made obviously. However we may see a lack of sales with numerous car manufacturers that if they do not cater to the electric market may suffer in the PR sector... The move from fossil fuels consumption will not change within the next 10 years. No way. And until there is a better alternative then child labour mining lithium (the main driving force behind hybrid and electric vehicles) the only thing we can hope for from a strategic perspective is that there are higher mileage vehicles in all the vehicular categories.
 

Andreas Thiel

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I think the financial side comes with some interesting competing incentives.

The US has no interest in letting China grab too much market share in any industry. With electric cars it is relatively easy to leapfrog to better products.

US companies will probably use all dirty marketing and PR tricks to make sure hydrogen / fuel cells secure at least around 40% market share to keep component suppliers alive as long as possible and to convince consumers that electric cars are subpar. Range could be their best value attribute to support this. There is some evidence that big players might be trying to gain time for research and development.
Personally, I think maintenance costs alone would make electric the favorite, by far.
The one issue I have is that I, like many people who live in a housing complex, could not charge a car at home. Not sure how Tesla plans to address that kind of issue. Currently the strategy is all about rich home owners (and it has to be).

Autonomous driving has interesting implications. The extreme case where we could get rid of 75% of the vehicles because most cars are idle 99% of the time is unlikely, but we should see some effect on the roads, especially once the next crisis hits and most people will need to live very "pragmatic" lifes.
Owning cars will not be pragmatic, then. Of course, automotive companies would not like that very much.
They want a business model where they can expect growth over decades. That friction could get interesting.

There is a real danger that people will have to let go of wanting to drive their vehicles themselves, because of consequence inequity. Once it would be hard to explain why you endanger lifes and the insurance companies do not cover the costs of accidents when humans are at fault, it will be difficult to stand your ground.
 

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