Mobility and Covid-19: what’s the C.A.S.E. now?

On 30 March 202030 March 2020 By Carlo IacoviniIn autonomous driving, Electric vehicles and Charging infrastructures, english blog, Sharing mobility and beyondLeave a comment

CASE (as ACES and similars) is the acronym reflecting the most recent trends in the Mobility Industry: we keep hearing that “Automotive is changing towards Connectivity, Autonomy, Sharing, Electric”. Now that Covid-19

outbreak is locking down entire countries, economies, the industry is thinking about what the future will look like.

The impacts of the crisis are far beyond what we think and the first main problem will be how to keep global corporations financially stable while production is closed.. and demand will not turn on with a click after the crisis will be over. In the short term, Governments and Bank institutions will provide large cash to companies to keep employees and restart production. In the meantime, management will evaluate multiple scenarios. and new trends will need to be considered.

Electric technology transition. There is a large debate about the correlation between Covid-19 outbreak and pollution, giving evidence on how much emissions fell due to lockdown and how the virus spreads out the most in critical pollutant regions (particularly in the north of Italy). These links should

support investing in EV to reduce global emissions from transport. Transition to electric can’t be stopped easily after more than a decade of r&d and product planning but as the market is still policy-driven more than consumer-driven, the fall of general demand could significantly slow down the process. The economic crisis will stop new sales (in china dropped more than 80%) and a delay in the mass adoption of EV might become a consequence to consider. Automakers will leverage these conditions to slow down the process and push for technological neutrality approach to increase sales and fight pollution in parallel through CNG/LPG and Euro 6 available products. The entire industry has already asked to EU regulatory body to postpone penalties for not reaching EU target goals in reducing total emissions while some top management is already sharing to the market some strategic decision (like JLR owner TATA willing to find a partner for the automotive division).

Autonomy: this much-expected revolution will need to change priorities and main business models. From one side teleoperations and self-driving vehicles shall be widely adopted for specific applications like driving in restricted areas, disinfection of roads, small goods delivery. On the other hand, some of the disruptive global services like robotaxis might become less attractive to consumers

affected by social distance and share mobility restrictions. Autonomous mobility software industry should not be directly affected by the outbreak, it’s more about which segment will continue to be on top of the list.

Sharing mobility. The disruptive trend of sharing mobility faces the biggest threats. Social distance will become a very common word and even more a requirement for the next 12/18 months to avoid the outbreak’s peaks. Consequently.. how many of existing users will still be comfortable in ride sharing, car pooling or sharing a vehicle with others.. seating in less than 1-meter distance? Covid-19 is changing our culture and personal values. Health care and prevention will become THE priority and customers will behave accordingly.
Rental and car share businesses might mitigate future new concerns through special tools to give confidence about how vehicles will be cleaned and disinfected after each ride. We already see leading players like Getaround facing financial problems in US while looking for a buyer or on the contrary leading EU player in sharing mobility Wunder, investing to acquire rental business software.

Connectivity: Not real negative impacts around connectivity. The communication infrastructure needed for the car and global infotaintment system to enhance the riding experience will remain a key feature of every vehicle doesn’t matter which segment and target user will be built for.

The timeline for those changes will also vary geographically even if automotive is a global industry (especially for components and supply chain). Europe risks the most due to stagnant demand with large production to keep alive but at least will go over Covid earlier than USA (that has just begun), while China is already in the re-opening phase and everybody hopes will boost the market raising demand. The global situation is still very fluid and the coming weeks will be crucial to understand what case will be next.

New mobility: what is going to happen.. realistically

On 24 September 201824 September 2018 By Carlo IacoviniIn autonomous driving, Electric vehicles and Charging infrastructures, english blog, Sharing mobility and beyondLeave a comment

city_vtol — Courtesy: the Aviary project

New mobility and transportation are on the hype; huge media coverage, billions of investments, M&A happening on a monthly basis and a common enthusiasm among the business community from all over the world. The convergence of multiple industries (Automotive, Public transportation, Energy and electrification, Shared mobility, Autonomous driving) are shaping the market and changing the boundaries among private vs public, ownership vs utilization and much more.

megatrends — Source: Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Ok.. we dream that in 2030-2040 all these transformations will be normal and many of us (or our children) will go around cities with flying cars available on a bottom through our smartphone..but what should we really expect happening in few coming years?

Here what I would realistically expect;

Electric vehicle industry and market: Electrification will be one the most concrete changes. Many investments have been done in the last 5/7 years and top car makers have clear pipeline for new products starting from premium level with a top down strategy. Tesla will be challenged by German automakers but if Model3 will maintain its promises there will be a lot of competition. Regional markets will see different developments: EU will grow slowly and even if there will be some exemptions (Nordics and likely UK and Netherlands) big volumes will arrive after the next 3-5 years once the charging etron infrastructures will be highly deployed. US will ramp up but in jeopardize markets, according to state and local policies. That will be positive anyway considered how US economy is localized. China is the leading region, not only due to Government commitment, but also because of components technology industry leadership (battery cells). Not sure how many among recent Chinese/global EV brands will be successful (Byton, Nio, FaradayFuture, Leeco) even if all of them have global similar organization (design and Engineer in EU, juice manufacturing in China, Headquarter and innovation in California). India shall be a interesting new area to look at. Growing economy, highly populated with a strong political commitment to shift towards EV (30% of EV by 2030). Infrastructures is a big gap but good quality products availability is also a limit so far waiting for big car makers to deploy premium vehicles. But 2 and 3 wheelers will be the the real challenge since those are the most popular vehicle, affordable for low income population and largely available, unfortunately these vehicles are generally cheap and not much technology is needed.

Autonomous driving: this trend is polarized: people either love embracing self driving car or just will never want to see someone out of the driver seat. Culture, safety, car passion.. every position is fair but will likely see early stage applications of self driving vehicles based on region economics and regulatory framework. While in US tech

companies developed software suites and operations based on traditional cars equipped with ADAS, Europe seems to be little behind also due to more strict regulation and less
attitude in letting autonomous car driving on public roads. But this approach doesn’t mean that once legal aspects will be set European player (and its historical car maker industry) will catch up and potentially “win” the long term run. We’ll likely see multiple use cases tests with a public transport oriented approach and last mile services using small shuttles.

Sharing Mobility: This is likely my favorite topic. After several projects, services and business models tested by a number of different brands, from automakers, to rental companies and public transport operators, we’ll move into a consolidation phase, RIDEHailing_ following two directions: many companies will merge to survive to competition specially because shared mobility is a low profit business and requires high economy of scale, larger companies will compete on multimodal services, integrating bikesharing, scooter sharing or moped (or light scooters.. naming is not standard yet). Again regulation will be a key topic as some of these innovation (specially free floating base) are highly discussed and public sentiment is often controversial.

For sure.. doesn’t matter which area of business you are focused on, it’s clear that there will be much to learn and new competences and skills will be required. Not referring to engineering and software sides only, but from operational perspective we’ll face new players and existing ones building knowledgable organizations leveraging a mix of digital and automotive experiences, combined with social, economics, transportation and sharing economy. While once we’ll have many operators and technologies in place..big data management and interoperability will be next business to address.. but later on.

Lead the coming global mobility business (..part 2)

On 6 December 2017 By Carlo IacoviniIn Electric vehicles and Charging infrastructures, Sharing mobility and beyond, smart & green city1 Comment

Assets management and revenue streams

I addressed in my previous post some of the relevant key topics to lead future mobility business cases. I move forward now to analyse which are the assets and the revenue streams of this new business model

Managing fleet of autonomous vehicles offers the unique opportunity to use a series of assets to increase the value of the business and develop multiple collateral business cases linked with the operations.

Each asset can be owned/acquired/leased/ to run the business case and create more revenues streams

Real estate.

AREXPO_BIRD EYE VIEW DAY_3 — Area Expo MasterPlan – Courtesy CRA

Storage and parking. Having access to storage hubs and parking infrastructures will be a key factors when we’ll have thousands of vehicles running.

Garages for car services. Traditional car dealers and services will shift their core business from privates or direct customers to fleet and an efficient and fast organisation will optimise the operations

Charging hubs (Renewable powered, smart grid, vehicle2grid applications). Grid balance in cities will be an issue and those players with direct access to infrastructures will be facilitated. Energy will be the new “oil” and its availability can be improved thanks to renewable power.

Big data

autono Among world top ten brands as per capitalisation (Amazon, Apple, Google,) and in mobility also (Uber) there are companies owning huge amount of data. Big data will be a mainstream revenue stream for those able to monetise and create value from that. Transport and mobility provide a relevant amount, coming from the following areas:

Mobility patterns (Matrix o/d)
Mapping data (for autonomous driving software applications)
Driving data (travel behaviour, drivers behaviour in different environment, incentives for drivers, privacy policies)
Fleet data/Insurance
Artificial intelligence for mobility and user experience

Fleet

MOIA_Vehicle_Exterieur_02 — MOIA ridesharing bus

Cars are not only the main asset for running the operations as there are multiple options to get value from the vehicle:

Financial asset. Financing the fleet allows to have interest gain
Second life Battery pack strategies (link to storage business model). The batteries of the vehicles can shift into a second life plan to re-market them at the end of the first lifecycle for storage and other utilisations.
Marketing. On purpose vehicles are a branding tool (as Moia just proved with their launch few days ago)
Commercial (promotion and re-marketing). Vehicles can generate more revenue once we move them into the re-marketing plan and second sales.

Entertainment

What shall we do during our trips in autonomous cars? Many operators are raising this questions and pay per use services (entertainment/business) to be developed for self driving cars seems to be a collateral area of interest. Whether we use our subscriptions (Netflix, Spotify and similar), I bet many services will be integrated directly in the cars.

If those are some of the assets to be leveraged in future mobility business, there is an complementary strategy to address which seems to be the big umbrella where including the whole stack of innovation: MAAS: mobility as a service. Once the volume of ridesharing trips will really shift our cities mobility patterns we have to expect that large corporations will aggregate vertical players to create the biggest

shared-mobility-simulations-auckland — ITF Forum ride sharing simulation study

platform to really go from A to B with one touch. Many are competing already around the world and capitalisations will drive the winning ones.

East regions (China, Malaysia, India) faces deregulated market where new mobility services (ride sharing/ride hailing) have established brands like DIDI (China) Grab (Malaysia) Careem (Middle east) OLA (india). Many of them have international growth plans or even to extend operations (Didi just announced 151M$ investment to enter the car sharing market).

West regions (USA/Canada). is the cradle of new mobility and player are competing at the forefront of innovation thanks to most famous brands Uber/Lyft, Waymo/Apple.

Europe: is an highly regulated market and new mobility struggles to become real in terms of volumes. Further than direct business development a potential strategy to fast the process in the early stage is to link with public transport operators or car manufacturers that are familiar with regulations and they are entering in the mobility arena. Business development is subject to local/national Government approval even if EU policies are expected within few years time to create the legal framework.

So there’s a lot to do and we can be sure that mobility, public transport industry and automotive will converge in a whole new competitive arena that we don’t know the boundaries yet.

“Italian cities to ban cars* by 2030”

On 12 September 201713 September 2017 By Carlo IacoviniIn Electric vehicles and Charging infrastructures, english blog, Sharing mobility and beyond, smart & green city

This provocative statement opens Citytech, the event gathering this week in Milan more than 800 international experts, key players and top brands showcasing some of the most relevant innovations in mobility aiming to shape tomorrow’s cities. It’s time to act and take strong decisions to lead the transition towards a more sustainable mobility system and urban environment.

citytech_logo Public policies made a strong acceleration in the last few weeks. UK and France declared to ban ICE (petrol and diesel) cars from new sales by 2040, Norway, counting 40% new registrations in August as electric cars, sets this goal in 2024 as Netherlands did. Most of all China has declared to be working on the same regulation, just defining the right timeframe. (we remind that China equals to 28 millions units market). That’s a long way if we consider that we have 695.000 EV globally in 2016 in 84 million cars market.

If Government sets regulations, industry’s role targets technologies and manufacturing accordingly. After Volvo recently announced to produce only electric or hybrid cars in 2019, JLR just followed with a target date of 2020 and media are full jaguar_ipace of releases from IAA show in Frankfurt from BMW, Daimler and VW on huge investments to electrified the whole production in the near future.

We finally know that revolution today.. needs money more than arms, so what’s the opinion from financial community about E-mobility? JpMorgan just declared that electric technology will disrupt the market with many losers, all those ones that will not drive the change. (CNBC credit video) They forecast 35% market share for EV in 2025, scaling to 48% by 2030. More conservative position from MorganStanley’s comparing multiple scenarios expects 16% penetration for EV (fully electric) in 2030 that can reach up to 60% by 2040. Meantime Dutch bank ING identifies the battery costs reduction and public incentives as the main opportunities to drive production fully electric in 2035.

Market is full of researches we don’t want to get lost in, the fundamental is that global BMWIvision political, economic and financial community has complete knowledge about this changing. Now it’s up to management class (from politics, to industries and consumers, nationally and locally) to decide whether they want to lead the changes or get disrupted. Italy is far behind this trend as proven by the insignificant market share of Ev (0,03%) or the absence of commitment and specific policies, any autonomous driving initiative elsewhere in the country even if there are existing competences and technologies not only linked to the “old” motor industry. We don’t need discussions but facts, projects, trials, and investments. That will bring the country industry back to a primary role in the future of automotive…(oh no sorry I’am wrong, …in the future of mobility).

*..combustion cars

Carlo Iacovini Marketing Director, Local Motors, Board Member, Clickutility on Earth

Electric Vehicles industry shouldn’t fear (too much) Trump Presidency: that’s why

On 14 November 201614 November 2016 By Carlo IacoviniIn Electric vehicles and Charging infrastructures, english blogLeave a comment

Few hours after Trump’s elections the global “clean energy” business community started debating about potential debacle coming from a step back in green policies, some how announced by new US Government.

Automakers industry made the first step writing an official letter (see letter from AutomotiveNews ) to the “Transition team” asking to review and weak requirements for fuel consumption that is set to a fleet average of more than 50 MPG by 2025, declaring that “The combination of low gas prices and the existing fuel efficiency gains from the early years of the program is undercutting consumer willingness to buy the vehicles with more expensive alternative powertrains that are necessary for the sector to comply with the more stringent standards in out-years”, also arguing about single state regulations unbalancing consumers acceptance about alternative fuel specially considering California is at the forefront of this approach and other States are following. It’s good to remember that EV industry in California (and many more States) has 7.500$ purchase Tax credit (for the first 200.000 vehicles sold from each car manufacturer) and companies like Tesla still has a big revenue stream from selling EV tax credits certificates to other automakers.

More in general green policies seems to be in danger if we consider that President Trump denies global warming and seems positive towards oil and coal industries and believes louisiana-mineral-rights-oil-gas-royaty-buyers-248x182 that strict ecological regulations can slow economic growth… even if it’s not true according to recent statements.

It’s not clear whether the US government will erase Paris Cop21 agreement but there are few considerations about EV industry (and new mobility) to outline:

Electric vehicles and fuel economy regulations are necessary not only for environmental reasons: they are crucial to hold oil demand (and foreign oil import expenses). We can expect new administrations to keep these measures as today because they prove to reduce oil consumption.
New Government seems more interested in financing big infrastructures (roads, bridges, hopefully some public transport network too..) furthermore engaging car manufactures in creating new jobs and keep productions in US instead of foreign factories.. (Doesn’t matter if cars are internal combustion, electric or autonomous..). I guess State Governors will still deal and support new EV brands like FaradayFuture, NextEv, LEECO, creating thousands of new jobs in Nevada, California and more.
Most of all it is well known that Customers have the real power and even Trumps election confirms these statements if we bring this statement to politics. Well, consumers today more than in the past like the coming to market innovation in EV industry. After Tesla, all big automakers have highly committed plans to introduce new products and even new brands. This trend can’t be stopped by a public administration.. Maybe the Government can slow it down instead of accelerating but at the end the market goes there.
Considering that China and Europe will keep going in this directions US could be in disadvantage situation in the next decade if keep away from this trend.
A final political consideration comes from demographics distributions votes: Young people voted mainly for Hillary, following the most disruptive trends in EV, new mobility and innovation. Mr. Trump declares himself to be President of all Americans and those votes could be very helpful in the midterm election in 4 years time.. so it wouldn’t be so difficult to approach this electorate keeping the growing new and sharing mobility industry alive.

We’ll see in coming months real strategies and first nominations in crucial roles to learn more about what to expect on EV market. Stay tunes.

@CarloIacovini

Tesla reports biggest loss in 10 quarters, but stock rises

On 3 November 20153 November 2015 By Carlo IacoviniIn Electric vehicles and Charging infrastructures, english blog

Electric automaker Tesla Motors today reported its biggest loss in 10 quarters as it spent heavily on the rollout of the Model X SUV and the development of the Model 3 vehicle.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.autonews.com

Carlo Iacovini: Tesla presenta la quadrimestrale con la maggior perdita degli ultimi anni (quasi 230 mln $) a causa del lancio di modelX e sviluppo Model3. Ma a fine giornata le azioni salgono del 7% con l’annuncio della presentazione della Model3 a marzo 2016. Strategia di comunicazione finanziaria e mercato ottimista.

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