Cars may yet pay for themselves through advertising
The pandemic is hitting the automotive sector severely. Automotive sector supplier Continental is cutting production, as virtually all the major European carmakers – BMW, VW, Ford and PSA – are shuttering their plants and putting staff onto short-time working. Nevertheless, looking at China, there are grounds for cautious optimism, as production is slowly resuming there after a major collapse. Johannes Plass, CEO and founder of the Hamburg-based design and communications consultancy Mutabor, remains optimistic about the automotive sector’s prospects: “This crisis is likely to boost the car as a means of mobility,” he believes.
Rising need for safe, personal space
Many people are re-evaluating the car as an alternative to public transport amid the coronavirus. “It caters to the current cocooning need, the desire to have one’s own safe space,” said Plass, who was a member of the body that prepared VDA’s decision on the next venue of the IAA, for which Hamburg was also in the running. And that space in your own car could in future prove even more comfortable and individual the more the trend to autonomous driving progresses.
Driver assistance, automatic parking and robotic car
“The shift here is from Automation Level 1, assisted driving, including automatic lane centring and distance control that is already a reality in many cars, and Level 5: fully autonomous driving,” Plass pointed out. Whereas fully autonomous robotic cars are still well into the future, for as long as they cannot ensure total safety, intensive work is going into various intermediate steps. In 2018, for instance, a pilot project at Hamburg Airport saw drivers of Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche vehicles leave their cars at the entrance to the car park. The car then took over, and looked for the parking bay booked by app beforehand and parking – all automatically. Mercedes-Benz and Bosch are currently trialling a joint pilot project on automated valet parking, seeing this as a major milestone on the road to autonomous driving.
