The car system: Germany and the reinvention of mobility

It is high time to rethink: Not the car is the product of the future – nor is it the product of the present. What the automotive industry and the nation should focus on is “meeting the human need for contemporary, affordable and safe mobility,” say Martin Stuchtey and Andreas Herrmann in the latest F.A.Z article. People who are mobile and want to make good use of their travel time offer a sales potential that is still virtually untapped today. By providing information, navigation, intermodal links and safety, revenue per kilometre travelled could be generated that the car industry still misses today. The authors derive an agenda from this observation, including a proposal for implementation.

Martin Stuchtey and Andreas Herrmann work out a challenging agenda that is intended to call on the three parties – the automotive industry, the state, and society – to systematically rethink their approach. The agenda is based on the optimal use of advantages resulting from the following future trends:

1. Shared Electric and Automated Mobility
2. Multiple energy systems (hydrogen, synthetic fuels, electricity and new electricity storage technologies)
3. Connecting different forms of transport in urban and rural areas
4. New resources efficient, circular ecosystems based on the premises of longevity and reusability (circular economy)
5. New revenue models in the automotive industry

With a proposal for implementation, they provide orientation as to which fundamental changes are necessary. A plan that can lead both the automotive industry out of the crisis and the economy as a whole into a new future scenario and at the same time offer people a new dimension of mobility.

1. Overall ecological consideration of climate protection instead of focusing on pollutant emissions at the exhaust pipe
2. State aid for the development of infrastructure for renewable energies
3. Facilitating projects in which the state, cities and industry can test new models
4. Public financial power for qualification with regard to future mobility and financing models for fleet formation in order to establish mobility as a service  
5. Government incentives for the development of the circular economy in the automotive industry

More info
Read the full article here.

Image Sourc: mohamed Hassan on Pixabay