Automotive the Future of Mobility

Will the Automotive era come to an end in the 21th century? Looking at today’s environmental and economic challenges of the use of last century technology cars and listening to some trend watchers one could think so. Cars can be regarded, as an old school status product indeed, for which there is no use, no place, no money and no interest in our modern society. On de other hand, auto-mobility is still growing, both in developed as in developing counties. The current worldwide road travel by motorbikes, cars, trucks and busses will probably double to 80 trillion kilometers in 2050 [1]. In terms of total mobility demand this is also the expected growth in the Dutch Port City area of Rotterdam. Facing these identical mobility growth figures in the Dutch Port City areas of Rotterdam this paper describes the research of the Rotterdam University of Applied Science, the motivation and developments in automotive, and our first living lab experiments. In our vision we believe that respecting the traditional automotive values ‘individual freedom and flexibility’ and using new disruptive technologies, the automobile will very likely consolidate its position as preferred choice for mobility of persons and goods during the 21th century. Meanwhile one should focus on tempting goals, the Six Zero’s, which will guide us towards a road map to a new sustainable economy and ecology