The automotive industry is undergoing its biggest transformation since its inception, as electric vehicles are being deployed worldwide and automated vehicles (AVs) move past their early stages of development. Following his recent article for MIT Sloan Management Review, PVMI director John Paul MacDuffie sat down with Wharton Business Daily to speak more on the future of mobility and how he expects auto and tech companies will navigate these changes.
MacDuffie maintains that despite the tech industry’s abundance of talent and proficiency in developing software, tech companies by themselves lack the capabilities to manufacture safe automated vehicles. “Remember that automobiles are this big, fast-moving, and dangerous product that operates 100% in the public space. None of our tech devices have that characteristic,” states MacDuffie. Instead, he says, it will be synergy between auto and tech companies that will allow the industries to confront issues of security, global-scale management, and data usage to deploy AVs safely.
With the escalation of climate change and thus emission regulations, countries like China pushing for the advancement of electric vehicles, and various OEMs planning new product releases, MacDuffie predicts that we can expect “a lot going on, but the total impact on mobility will be low for a long time until complex system issues are worked out.”
Listen to the full interview above.