Car manufacturers don’t just sell customers a transport solution. They sell an aspirational lifestyle.
So it should come as no surprise that many have started to worry about the impact autonomous driving technology will have on their profits, if and when those aspirations are made irrelevant. Some industry practitioners believe that when travelling in autonomous vehicles becomes the norm, there will be little to no incentive to own a private car at all. Instead, fleet managers or ride-sharing networks will rent cars to the public as and when demand requires, undermining the opportunity for manufacturers to increase margins with bespoke extras.
The industry’s response is that the shift doesn’t have to be a problem for profitability. People will still need cars; business models will have to adjust. Rather than marketing cars to individuals, manufacturers will have to be better at marketing themselves to professional fleet networks or operators.