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Many analysts think that this increasing commoditization of cars will finally kill off some famous names. General Motors and Ford have taken radical preemptive action: GM has quit Europe and downsized, and Ford has ended production of conventional cars in the U.S.—bar the Mustang and the Focus Active—in favor of trucks and commercial vehicles.
For many, Uber’s on-demand system poses a threat to a culture of car ownership.
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But the more premium the brand, the less the CEO needs to worry. BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and their ilk don’t face an existential threat in the coming disruption, but neither are they immune. The slow rate at which they’re developing appealing electric cars has already let in one new entrant, Tesla, which may shift the balance among the established players. Tiny Jaguar beat the Germans to get a Tesla rival—I-Pace—to market, and it’s good, but the others aren’t far behind.
In the rarefied space occupied by Rolls-Royce, Ferrari and their competitors, nobody seems concerned about the matter: neither CEOs nor investors. When clients demand warp-speed but whisper-quiet electric drivetrains, luxury carmakers will be able to offer them and bury the prodigious (but declining) cost of the required battery in the price of the car. Rolls made an experimental electric Phantom a few years ago. It didn’t excite its customers, but their attitudes may have been changed by the Tesla they probably now also own. Aston Martin plans to resurrect Lagonda as an electric-only luxury rival to Rolls-Royce.
Newcomer Tesla’s electric car technology has already shifted the balance among established players.
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And while on-demand autonomous cars will soon begin to navigate our cities, they are unlikely to push human-driven cars off the road. The captain of industry who wants his Rolls with his driver waiting outside the revolving door of his headquarters will still want it there in 20 years’ time, and the law will still permit it. Sporting marques like Ferrari, whose appeal lies in the visceral thrills its cars give drivers, are also immune to the rise of autonomy. This immunity was Müller-Ötvös’s point: Carmakers like his simply don’t conform to market norms.
And there’s a more fundamental reason why our favorite automakers will probably ride all these changes out. From the private carriages of early railroad barons to the modern Gulfstream G650, we have long communicated status with our means of transport. Luxury carmakers depend on this choice, and can continue to. Unless in 2060 a nonagenarian Elon Musk finally patents teleportation and ends the need to move at all, that desire seems unlikely to vanish.
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