We would like to invite you to share your insights and ideas with us about the following topic. How do you think the green-mobility industry will evolve? Please feel free to comment on this article or to contact us directly at info@floyd-associates.com.
A revolution has begun. A revolution that will transform personal and public mobility the way we know it. Reliance on fossil fuels as a source of energy and on the internal combustion engine for mobility is simply too risky and the public is finally understanding that the only way to obtain energy independence is to migrate from our addiction to fossil fuels to a reliance on renewable energy sources. Meanwhile, governments and companies from around the world are scrambling to stay ahead of the game and to emerge as winners in tomorrow’s green mobility industry.
No one knows who the big players in tomorrow’s automotive market will be but there is plenty of room for speculation. What we do know is that during such times of rapid change, it is inevitable that new players will emerge and old ones are forced to either restructure or downsize - if not close shop altogether. Nowhere is this more evident than in the present condition of the automotive industry in both in the United States and Europe.
China, however, has been swift to observe and act upon these trends. During the past few years, Chinese car companies have unveiled various models of electric vehicles from neighborhood electric cars to roomy sedans. BYD Auto, the Chinese auto maker, with only five years of experience in car manufacturing, now supplies more than 6 models and has plans to sell hybrids in the US. Founded in 1997, Chery Automobile Company is another example of a Chinese manufacturer that has been quick to build a successful Chinese brand of clean vehicles.
Aside from the manufacturing of vehicles, radically new approaches are also being taken by states and cities to integrate these technologies into our everyday lives. In the United States there is a continued move towards the creation of sustainable cities that minimize the negative effects of transportation and in turn enhance the livability of cities. For example, the mayors of both Portland and San Francisco are in fierce competition to make their respective cities the greenest on earth, with both cities battling to be the first to develop the infrastructure to support full-scale electric vehicle deployment. Of course, in Europe, many cities already have this infrastructure in place and it is used with varying degrees of success.
The question therefore becomes: given the pressures of the market to go green and the current economic climate, what is the ability for these types of innovative technologies to support the development of new modes of transportation and the infrastructure to support it? Are cities really becoming greener? Who will be the next big players in this industry? And is the market ready to adopt such changes?
We welcome your comments and thoughts.
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You have very good points. There are many infrastructure projects that need to be complete for us to get to the ultimate goal of energy independence. However, none of it is based on science or technology that's unknown and undoable. We need to slowly change our means of transportation to ones that run on renewable sources of energy and simultaneously, shift our power plants to ones that generate power not by burning coal (or gas) but by harnessing the power of the sun, the wind and the atom.
I believe that the revolution has begun and that the train has left the station. We have started to make the change and this time we will not reverse course due to lower oil prices.
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