Car Makers Prepare for Future of Self-driving, Ride-sharing and Electric Cars

GM, Ford and other car makers are making big moves to prepare for a future dominated by self-driving cars, ride-sharing and electric cars.

The next few years in the USA are still mainly SUV and Trucks. US light truck sales in 2018 were up 8%, passenger car sales were down 20% and overall light vehicle sales were slightly down.

In 2019 or 2020, the World will make over 100 million light cars and trucks.

General Motors will close three assembly plants by the end of 2019, and lay off up to 5,600 workers. The plants that are closing were all building passenger cars. General Motors is killing several passenger cars, including the Chevrolet Volt and Chevrolet Cruze. U.S. sales of the Cadillac XTS and Buick LaCrosse luxury cars will end in March. The Cadillac CT6 will be killed off in the U.S. after mid-2019, though it will continue to be sold in China.

GM will have $6 billion in additional annual cash flow by the end of 2020. This includes $4 billion in cost cuts and $1.5 billion in reduced capital expenditures.

GM wants to have cash to react to fast-changing technology and shifts to ride-sharing. GM will launch a self-driving car service in 2019.

Fiat Partners with Waymo and Other Self-driving Car Projects

Fiat Chrysler reported on Oct. 30 that its third-quarter adjusted operating profit was almost 2 billion euros. This was more than the quarterly profit at Ford.

Fiat Chrysler has partnered with Alphabets Waymo on self-driving cars. They are making 62,000 Pacifica minivans. Fiat Chrysler and Waymo have been talking about using Waymo’s self-driving technology in Fiat Chrysler-manufactured vehicles that would be available to retail customers.

Volvo Will Launch Self-driving Cars in Europe in 2021

Volvo is making multi-billion bets on several new electric cars. Volvo is also launching self-driving cars in Europe. Volvo is a subsidiary of Chinese automotive company Geely.

Ford Launching a Large Self-Driving Car Service at Half the Price of Uber in 2021

Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.

Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.

A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts.  He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.

7 thoughts on “Car Makers Prepare for Future of Self-driving, Ride-sharing and Electric Cars”

  1. I don’t think even Goolge has enough money to buy FCA outright… though they probably could buy a struggling EV maker (like Lucid motors) and invest enough capital to allow it to succeed.

  2. CASE (connected, autonomous, shared, electric) alliance was being spearhead by Ghosn with google, apple, and a bunch of automakers. It would have been a last stand by legacy players partnering with cloud native companies, versus the car sharing platforms startup unicorns. With Ghosn effectively out of the game now, CASE alliance has probably strategically been crippled, which means Nissan may have effectively killed the legacy car makers including themselves.

  3. China has been preparing for this changeover for 15 years. It’s going to be interesting to see which companies survive.

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