[DDD31]

Interesting quote from Harald Krueger the CEO of BMW at the Geneva International Motor Show:

“We’re transforming BMW from a carmaker into a tech company and a mobility-service provider,” Krueger said in response to questions from Bloomberg. “During this transformation, there’s one constant factor: a rigorous focus on what helps our customers and what they desire.”

Full article:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-lull-persists

A tech company and mobility-service provider????

BMW's new slogan "The ultimate mobility-service provider"

[itrocks4u]

Adapting to change.

[Wolf 335]

They have no choice.

Their premium exclusivity has slightly diminished as other car manufacturer are keeping up with bmw's build quality.

Tesla is doing the same, making cars, batteries, solar panels, etc.

Honda has been doing it for years!

It has to be done!

[LOW4LYF]

Well car sharing gonna be a huge topic for every big car manufacture...

[3GFX]

M division differentiation will equal the "drivers' cars" and BMW will be the company that focuses on autonomous living rooms.

[fbsm]

I'll pass on the rolling liveing rooms

[mkoesel]

BMW no longer will be a carmaker?

The answer to this is, "No". The reason is, a tech company and mobility service provider can still be an automobile manufacturer. In the near term this will be the case.

Looking further out, like other carmakers, BMW will see less and less and revenue coming from automobile sales as technology marches on. The core reason for this is that robotic cars (autonomous vehicles if you prefer) don't need to sit around all day and night waiting for you to come along and pilot them. They can simply pilot themselves. So, that means the world needs a lot less of them to meet its transportation needs. It also means that many people who own a car today won't need to in the future, and some people being born today may never need one at all. As a forward thinking enterprise, you see this eventuality and diversify now to ensure the long term health and success of your company.

No need to make it any more complicated or more sensationalist than that.

[fbsm]

People dont have patience to wait to go someplace as it stands today...even folks that live in urban areas choose to have their own cars, have drivers wait for them or hail taxis for what it effectively instant gratification to avoid the incovenience of waiting for public transportation

Folks are fooling themselves if they think human nature is going to change.....if anything it will become accellerated and folks will have LESS patience for waiting

the fantasy model becomes even more tenuous when you try to extend it to areas that are less dense from a population perspective......it doesnt work at all in rural areas

Personally owned transportation isnt going anywhere

[mkoesel]

It sure isn't going to rise unbounded.

Your sentiment reads as a reply to someone whose claimed that we are all going to wake up one morning and find that overnight the streets have become dominated by autonomous vehicles and that our traditional automobiles have been sent to the scrap heap.

People still used horses for transportation long after the first commercially available cars were on the market. "Horses and carriages aren't going anywhere", they cried. And they were absolutely correct. It was a gradual transition, and horses are still used today for human transportation. But 100+ years after the automobile began to take hold, you don't see too many of them sauntering down the side of the road. Similarly, 100 years from now, the same will be true for human operated vehicles. It has to start somewhere and since autonomous technology is maturing now, it is by definition starting now.

Originally Posted by fbsm

Personally owned transportation isnt going anywhere

[fbsm]

Originally Posted by mkoesel

It sure isn't going to rise unbounded.

Your sentiment reads as a reply to someone whose claimed that we are all going to wake up one morning and find that overnight the streets have become dominated by autonomous vehicles and that our traditional automobiles have been sent to the scrap heap.

People still used horses for transportation long after the first commercially available cars were on the market. "Horses and carriages aren't going anywhere", they cried. And they were absolutely correct. It was a gradual transition, and horses are still used today for human transportation. But 100+ years after the automobile began to take hold, you don't see too many of them sauntering down the side of the road. Similarly, 100 years from now, the same will be true for human operated vehicles. It has to start somewhere and since autonomous technology is maturing now, it is by definition starting now.

Your analogy is one that is commonly used

I definately think that there will be a portion of the transportation segment that will adopt autonomous cars/outside of private ownership

I doubt that market share will be meaningfully different than what we currently see for taxi/other services in urban areas

In exurb/rural areas these services are effectively non existent because they are neither practical or convenient

Until you solve the economics and logistics of providing instantaneous access to transportation to non urban folks their not going to adopt it.

People adopt "Good Ideas" because they make sense.

Folks moved away from horse and buggy because it was more practical to use cars that you didnt have to feed, clean up after, deal with lameness/vet bills let alone training of said animals.

Instead of having to tack up a draft horse/oxen and hitch them to a cart....a lengthy/time consuming process folks simply got into a horseless carriage and drove away

Until you magically make non privately owned vehicles a "Good Idea" that better suits their personal decisions in life they wont adopt it

[Maynard]

I'd be more worried if the current level of in-car tech wasn't several generations behind what the hipsters are carrying (or wearing). And you can play all the online sim you want, nothing will ever really replace the dynamic feeling of driving. Like horseback riding, it probably doesn't appeal to many, but there will always be a market for those of us who are into it. Now if only BMW can keep from becoming 'the Mercedes/Toyota wannabe of the future' long enough to remember what distinguished their brand originally (providing a sports car experience in something that you could actually use).

[mkoesel]

Originally Posted by fbsm

Until you magically make non privately owned vehicles a "Good Idea" that better suits their personal decisions in life they wont adopt it

You are looking at year 2030+ problems through the eyes of a current-day consumer within the bounds of current-day infrastructure.

Furthermore, the challenges you name will be naturally overcome when a number of practical conditions evolve.

Already we seen younger generations with a shift in consumer mindedness toward virtual meeting rather than physical meeting as a preference. On demand to them does not mean what it does to you, and this becomes less a concern with each passing generation.

A centrally-managed fleet of autonomous vehicles can be made to more efficiently move people from A to B than today's unconnected model. Traffic congestion becomes a problem that can be managed algorithmically rather than unpredictable, chaotic events. In time, with the uncertainty or vehicular transportation taken out of the equation or at least greatly reduced, trust grows and leads to the acceptance that one does not need a vehicle in their garage.

The very need to "go out and fetch" diminishes over the next few decades as consumers can now have goods pushed to them. In time, in home personal assistants of increasingly sophisticated skills supplant some of the need to leave the home to have services performed.

Moreover, just as the cost to own a car is less than the cost to own a horse, the cost to use a car on demand is less than the cost to own one. The recognition of the ride-share model by the automotive industry is not coincidence - they are all spotting these changing tides.

With the initial focus on urban focused areas, what's going on outside the city is not important right away anyway. That's a problem for latter generations. And no one says it has to touch every consumer. But it will effect a significant portion of our population.

No magic is required. Just a little forward thinking. If, instead of this, you are correct and mobility attitudes and behaviors are not headed the way the all of the big players believe, time to short the stock - you're headed for a huge payout.

[fbsm]

Originally Posted by mkoesel

You are looking at year 2030+ problems through the eyes of a current-day consumer within the bounds of current-day infrastructure.

Furthermore, the challenges you name will be naturally overcome when a number of practical conditions evolve.

Already we seen younger generations with a shift in consumer mindedness toward virtual meeting rather than physical meeting as a preference. On demand to them does not mean what it does to you, and this becomes less a concern with each passing generation.

A centrally-managed fleet of autonomous vehicles can be made to more efficiently move people from A to B than today's unconnected model. Traffic congestion becomes a problem that can be managed algorithmically rather than unpredictable, chaotic events. In time, with the uncertainty or vehicular transportation taken out of the equation or at least greatly reduced, trust grows and leads to the acceptance that one does not need a vehicle in their garage.

The very need to "go out and fetch" diminishes over the next few decades as consumers can now have goods pushed to them. In time, in home personal assistants of increasingly sophisticated skills supplant some of the need to leave the home to have services performed.

Moreover, just as the cost to own a car is less than the cost to own a horse, the cost to use a car on demand is less than the cost to own one. The recognition of the ride-share model by the automotive industry is not coincidence - they are all spotting these changing tides.

With the initial focus on urban focused areas, what's going on outside the city is not important right away anyway. That's a problem for latter generations. And no one says it has to touch every consumer. But it will effect a significant portion of our population.

No magic is required. Just a little forward thinking. If, instead of this, you are correct and mobility attitudes and behaviors are not headed the way the all of the big players believe, time to short the stock - you're headed for a huge payout.

Forgive the poor humor but no one wants to wear someone else underwear no matter how many times it gets washed.

We dont share computers
We dont share phones
We dont share homes
We dont share any number of personal items

Transportation is one of the more personal items we own next to a house....and for many our transportation is a bigger/more personal decision than than a home

Personal transportation throughout human history (horse, bicycle, automobile has always been central to freedom and opportunity

You talk about real/imagined issues for 2030 or whatever year/decade

I'm talking about thousands of years of human nature

And humans dont like being dependent on others....especially dependent on large companies.....so if you tell folks they're mobility is dependent on whether or not 1 or several big transportation companies want to service your area or not due to distance/crime/other factors then they are stranded

Folks seem to miss the point

Tech is a tool not a lifestyle

I fully expect transportation to be a "service" in urban areas but not to any significant degree more than it is today

Human nature is what it is......and our desire to be mobile/free isnt going to change.

Tools are tools and folks will always choose the tool thats best for their own personal circumstances.

[AIRPOWER]

It's all going to turn into Death Race 2000, fueled starved ///M owners looking like Mad Max roaming American Highways with garden hoses and red fuel cans.

[mkoesel]

Originally Posted by fbsm

We dont share computers
We dont share phones
We dont share homes
We dont share any number of personal items

People share vacations homes. People share public computers.

You don't share your primary address because there is too much overlap between the time you need to use it and the time others would. Not to mention it is not just a place to live but a place to keep ones belongings.

I think the practical reasons why we don't share underwear are obvious. They are the same reasons why you'd let someone, perhaps a family member or friend, borrow your phone, or your home, or your computer, or yes, even your car. But not your toothbrush. Not even a family member. Not anyone.

A car isn't like a home and it's not like a pair of underwear either. Its a way from A to B.

Today we share planes and we share trains. We do so because unlike a pair of underwear it is practical to do so. And if there were a publicly available network of autonomous vehicles, we'd share those too. If people didn't want to share transportation, uber, Lyft, etc. wouldn't exist.

Of course, not everyone uses public transportation, but those that do will use whatever is made available to them.

Short that stock. You've got the future all figured, and the experts are all wrong. You're gonna be rich.

[aswy6]

Just started working for an oil company, bought my first M car that i was dreaming about my whole life and now you telling me that i will have to use some robot to get from A to B? Please stop...

[fbsm]

Originally Posted by mkoesel

People share vacations homes. People share public computers.

You don't share your primary address because there is too much overlap between the time you need to use it and the time others at the same time others do. Not to mention it is not just a place to live but a place to keep ones belongings.

I think the practical reason why we don't share underwear are obvious. They are the same reasons why you'd let someone, perhaps a family member or friend, borrow your phone, or your home, or your computer, or yes, even your car. But not your toothbrush. Not even a family member. Not anyone.

A car isn't like a home and it's not like a pair of underwear either. Its a way from A to B.

Today we share planes and we share trains. We do so because unlike a pair of underwear it is practical to do so. And if there were a publicly available network of autonomous vehicles, we'd share those too. If people didn't want to share transportation, uber, Left, etc. wouldn't exist.

Of course, not everyone uses public transportation, but those that do will use whatever is made available to them.

Short that stock. You've got the future all figured, and the experts are all wrong. You're gonna be rich.

I think we're talking past one another

Clearly you have a fantasy that you would like to find some bridge to

I'm looking at human nature and human history and our current/foreseeable reality

Until you change human nature OR offer some REVOLUTIONARY new tool to folks they're not going to abandon what they currently have

Virtualization is no substitute for human interaction

I work with folks across the country and the world every day and its a useful tool to cut costs/minimize direct interaction but it doesnt eliminate the need.

Same with IM vs Voice.......IM is a useful tool but its no subsitute for actual conversation

Horse to Car/Plane is really an evolutionary change......just a more efficient mode of transportation/

non personally owned transportation for an urbanite that doesnt have much need for transportation will likely be an economical choice assuming the price is right

But the same model doesnt scale outside of urban areas....especially in cases where many of us choose to drive significant distances on a regular basis due to personal choice

Until a better tools to get folks from a>b faster/more comfortably/more fun manner is developed I dont see anyone WILLINGLY giving up personal transportation

And any company that tries to force that model onto folks will simply open the door to a competitor

Human nature is what it is

Best of luck to you, I'm out of this thread

[ajfoggy]

Fancy management blurb that means nothing. They will still make cars, call it what you want.

[Spinnetti]

Actually the days are numbered for cars.. they are just hedging their bets on the future. Toyota did the same thing... they are now a "Mobility company". Rest will follow suit at somepoint.... Marketing indeed. Just like Apple Computer became just Apple... same idea.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by ajfoggy

Fancy management blurb that means nothing. They will still make cars, call it what you want.

Exactly. EVERY automotive manufacturer is a Tech Company and a Mobility Service Provider.

BMW ... LOL

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by Spinnetti

Actually the days are numbered for cars.. they are just hedging their bets on the future. Toyota did the same thing... they are now a "Mobility company". Rest will follow suit at somepoint.... Marketing indeed. Just like Apple Computer became just Apple... same idea.

How many days?

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by mkoesel

People share vacations homes. People share public computers.

You don't share your primary address because there is too much overlap between the time you need to use it and the time others would. Not to mention it is not just a place to live but a place to keep ones belongings.

I think the practical reasons why we don't share underwear are obvious. They are the same reasons why you'd let someone, perhaps a family member or friend, borrow your phone, or your home, or your computer, or yes, even your car. But not your toothbrush. Not even a family member. Not anyone.

A car isn't like a home and it's not like a pair of underwear either. Its a way from A to B.

Today we share planes and we share trains. We do so because unlike a pair of underwear it is practical to do so. And if there were a publicly available network of autonomous vehicles, we'd share those too. If people didn't want to share transportation, uber, Lyft, etc. wouldn't exist.

Of course, not everyone uses public transportation, but those that do will use whatever is made available to them.

Short that stock. You've got the future all figured, and the experts are all wrong. You're gonna be rich.

Sharing planes and trains is called public transportation; it's not private ownership of a single vehicle. fbsm makes very good points regarding the conversion to car sharing. Rural folk (I'm one) will not adapt to a car sharing model of transportation simply because it doesn't fit the geography. Rural folk do matter as evidenced in the last US presidential election. Car ownership is not as expensive as the car sharing model; it's analogous to eating dinner at a restaurant vs. preparing your own meal at home.

I still have not seen put forth the economic model that allows for conversion of the private fleet automobiles from driver-operated to driver-less operated. I do not believe the tech exists or can be cost-effectively developed that will allow the local, accident-free, operation of tens of thousands of automobiles autonomously without a complete change of the current private/public ownership transportation model. The attempt to a graduated adoption of autonomous vehicles will be fraught with driver/driver-less collisions and the commensurate lawsuits that will follow; adoption will be quite difficult.

A truly accident-free autonomous transportation system means all traffic and vehicles are managed by a central-control system and that the technology is fail-safe. There are privacy rights (at least in the US), implementation affordability, and technical hurdles that in my opinion are not economically surmountable.