The Future of Automotive Personal Transport: Which Technologies - Electric, Service or the Combination Will Win In Different Markets?

This dissertation explores the future trends that are driving the transformation of the automotive industry. The author investigated the possibility of the key trends to get a framework of predictions of the automotive future. The main aspects of the research are the future potential of electric vehicles and shared mobility service in different markets, focusing on the U.S. and Chinese market, the two largest economies in the world. This dissertation aims to assess key trends on the future automotive personal transport and test its possibility. It contributes to providing insights for the industry players to position themselves in the new competitive structure. There are various trends forecasted by different organizations, but there is no integrated view, analysis and comparison of the possibility. The impacts on the industry players are vague but crucial. This paper evaluated all the key trends, mainly focusing on electric vehicles and shared mobility services. The research found that car ownership is still of high importance in both the U.S. market and the Chinese market. Both governments are promoting the transformation to clean energy usage in the personal transport field. Therefore, electric car ownership is predicted to win out in both markets. Additionally, the scenario of car-sharing is also popular in the U.S. market. The level of acceptance of U.S. citizens is higher than that of Chinese citizens. However, with the wealth increase and urbanization, the younger generation in China hold the open attitude to car-sharing provided that the service network can ensure approachability and safety. The author predicts that the combination of the scenario of electric car ownership and electric car-sharing service will win out in the U.S. market. Electric car ownership will win out in the Chinese market. The prospect of car-sharing requires further improvement in order to be widely adopted by Chinese consumers