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In this article for the World Economic Forum, Mike Thoeny, President, Automotive Business Group, delves into the rapid transformation taking place across the automotive industry and the biggest roadblocks facing the next generation of mobility.
Innovations underpinning electric vehicles (EVs), advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), and the path to autonomous driving is creating transformational opportunities for industry, consumers, and society alike. Yet the road to achieving the promise of next-generation mobility is fraught with societal and business challenges and enormous technological complexities. Against this backdrop, the automotive industry is recovering from several years of significant global supply chain disruptions alongside other macroeconomic headwinds.
Thoeny highlights how automakers and their networks of suppliers must work together to overcome the biggest roadblocks facing mobility’s future – from scaling software-defined vehicles quickly to conquering complexity and delivering complete systems to mitigating shocks and imbalances across the global supply chain.
He makes the case for why the industry must develop a next-generation ecosystem that embraces deep, ongoing collaboration where automakers and partners contribute their respective strengths and collaborate earlier in the development cycle. This focus on partnership will enable automakers to respond faster to shifting market conditions while launching next-generation mobility products with greater reliability, resilience, and speed.
With software R&D spend forecasted to grow to $47 billion by 2028 – and less than half of spend today allocated to true differentiating features such as over-the-air software and AI software frameworks – it’s imperative that the industry accelerates the openness of the ecosystem.
— Mike Thoeny, President, Automotive Business Group
By fostering deep collaboration between partners and seizing the industry’s momentum as technologies advance, the industry can overcome the challenges of today to achieve the promise of next-generation mobility.
