Macro - Level Trends - UK Industrial Strategy - The 'Utopian' Autonomous EV Future.... within Global PESTEL Trends

Previously, the UK Industrial Strategy White Paper of late 2017 was put under the spotlight, and viewed as a well crafted Prospectus as opposed to the beginnings of a true Working Paper. it was broad, as it should be, but shallow in providing a meaningful map to lead into the future.

The big themes presented as the 'Grand Challenges' to be conquered across high-line topics such as an Aging Society, Clean Energy, Big Data (ie Intelligent Infrastructures for the 'Internet of Things') and new methods of Societal Mobility (from the humble bicycle to an age of Autonomous Vehicles).

Yet as then mentioned, the very administrative structure of delivering upon the innate promises of that Paper - heavily Big Data dependent Success measurement Committees, so as to support the use of Big Data - appeared under-whelming, process and stake-holder democracy out-trumping any idea of innate vision. The kind of national vision seen in teh Victorian Age or the 1950s and 1960s, when the country was truly re-inventing itself, and propelling itself into a better future.

Thankfully, beneath the surface of that informational flimsy White Paper, and the government admin commitees, there have been the previous Industrial Catapult Schemes designed to direct funds to those who have the capabilities that underpin such national visions, even if many of them are imported directly from America's Silicon Valley, and not so home grown.  

Hence the UK's 'New Future' still appears some way away, as the very plans for the building of that true new future - beyond HS2 etc - appear still somewhat hazy.

The research and proof of concept exploration of various, ever evolW

Battery solutions at the Warwick Manufacturing Group illustrates the spectrum of possibilities just per battery architectures (Tesla vs Nissan vs VW-Porsche).  This but one aspect of the overall enormous tech refinement process to reach macro-level applicability.

 And as for creating the predictive computer brain that is able to 'see' and respond to the complexity of the outside world - roadways, vehicles, bicycles, people, animals, etc - the presenters at the very good and detailed Tesla Autonomy Day, conveyed just how hard that task is, even with much improved processing capabilities (that it notionally calls 'neural network').

And the 'IoT promise' still to be made manifest beyond some domestic appliance app based services, and all too ironically, the national security questions surrounding the emergent global champion that is China's Huawei and its 5G/6G infrastructure offerings upon which fast-speed IoT must run.

(24.04.2019 - the decisin not to be hostile toward Huawei by Britain and to allow non-core IT infrastructure development, is a positive step amongst the 5 -Eyes club. It demonstrates Britain's lead in recreating internationalist ties between West and East).

So instead of walking semi-blindly in the futuristic haze, the previous weblog sought to illustrate how in one instance a part of that future had been made tangible already and had been with us for some years.

BMW had back in 2006/7 sought to reshape fundamental aspects of the automotive world - and so society - with its MegaCity Project. Which in turn led to the inaugral i3 and i8 models of its i-series sub-brand.

Unlike so much else we are fed in the permanent financial and social media-stream, which views everything through the lens of the Digital (Connectivity, Big Data etc) that simply overlays the what are in effect cyber-based message mediums onto the conventionally engineered world; BMW had decided (like Tesla) to alter the very ground-rules of vehicle design.

And unlike the emergent brand names of the burgeoning ecologically directed sharing economy - for the good of humankind - in the notional roots of the business models of Uber, Lyft etc, which for the consumer did little more than 'app-ify' the calling of a typically conventional taxi and actually sought to capture enormous 'share of mind' to boost stock prices; BMW recognised it had to change the real world.

A world actually made  of materials, engineering hard-points and from the output of production processes. A world that ultimately must be eco-consciously re-designed, and which spans everything from aeronautics to zoological centres.

By substantively altering the BIW (body in white) of its car from conventional steels and alloys to a high content carbon-fibre shell placed over aluminium rolling chassis, and producing en mass, it altered the automotive landscape.

Thanks to enormous financing backing (PayPal profits, Wall Street and the US Governement) and massive media-platform PR assistence over the course of a decade, Tesla might have  cult status amongst Millenials given Elon Musk's personality and associated achievements; but the trends of the very zeitgeist (combining the web with US QE)  provided much of Tesla's uplift. All the socio-economic tailwinds were there to be utilised.

The picture was very different at BMW in 2006/7. Yes it had been enormously succesful thanks to 25 years of initial 1980s 'Yuppiedom' being culturally absorbed by the credit-enabled aspirant Western middle-classes, but unlike Musk who was able to start from scratch with enormous backing, Munich had to manage business as usual with highly capital intensive research, development and production of conventional cars, whilst also creating i-series anew.

Hence, a fundamental issue for society, business and investors is the ability of those long encumbent companies that must evolve ecologically and digitally, and able to - like BMW - very well manage that transition by controlling their destinies.

Of course various vehicle manufacturers have sought to better future-proof themselves by literally buying into the digital future through partial shareholdings in those new-generation firms : from autonomous vehicle technologies to mobility firms, awaiting the day that app-hailed driverless cars become reality, to ever more sophisticated battery structures,  chemical compositions and anode/cathode types.

The plethora of possibilities and divergent technical strategies createsan ever greater number of technical possibilities and so combinations, each auto-maker and their suppliers seeking the best performing formulae to reduce range anxiety and improve vehicle re-charging time.

Yet that plethora of possibilities only serves to create greater technical complexity, when - so as to ensure widespread adoption of electrification - greater standardisation is required so as to create the very infrastructure required to promote electrification.

Thus the reality of building the EV future is far more complex than the constant media hype and press releases conveys.

Elon Musk seeking to calm fears about such issues by highlighting the global roll-out of charge stations, though many of the older points themselves having to be retro-fitted to be able to connect and charge new Tesla models.

Thus the future is still very much in flux.

Yet the central message about an almost utopian electric-autonomous vehicle future is necessarily relayed by vehicle manufacturers keen not to be seen as dinosaurs of the past, precisely because today is presented as if the past.    

As seen with the ever increasing number of concept 'Autonomous Pod' type vehicles shown at Auto-shows and video sites (eg Renault's EZ-GO, EZ -Pro, EZ-Ultimo), that distant goal of full autonomy is the end-point, all fed from Green Energy and Big Data.

But as with part-ownership of Venture-Cap owned firms, the publicising of such concepts with even full-size moving models, is very different to actually re-shaping the very foundations of the world at large and concomitant business models; so as to actually meaningfully step further forward toward Tomorrow's World.

That's why BMW's i3 was so important, it was a very meaningful step forward regards the single dimension (of many) per vehicle structures. Although just one dimension, it was a profound piece of the overall jigsaw directly materialised in the real world.

But the issues to be considered are far more than technical and go beyond the socio-economic ramifications of such technologies (eg. the excavating of salt-flats to obtain specific rare-earth minerals required for high-density batteries, and the proclivity of futures-trading upon such minerals).

The issues to be addressed are diverse, across both a broad spectrum and deep into detail.

Two of the best publicised are from End-of-Life scenarios of what will eventually be old vehicle batteries once past their prime and past recycled 2nd life use as domestic energy storage units; to the responsibilities, morals/ethics about various autonomous accidents; to the question of possible cyber-terrorism hacking and deliberately injuring or killing  innocent private and publicly shared robo-car users.

To convince the auto-industry itself, academia, government and public of the enormity of the issue and debate, a number of books have been published to expound upon the history, present picture and the concept of the hive-like intelligent transport system at the micro-level and the automted mobility pod at the micro-level.

'Autonomous Driving', authored by Herrman/Brenner/Stadler is but one, itself published by Emerald and released last year. Its ten chapters span all PESTEL issues to be addressed, whilst providing detail, soundbites and 'take-away' messages aboout each subject.

Broadly the chapters cover:

1. Evolutions and Revolutions in Mobility (inc Megatrends)
2. Perspective on Autonomous Driving (inc Economics and Techno-Public Policy Roadmap)
3. Technology of the Autonomous Car (inc Automation Levels 1-5, Data Securit and Privacy)
4. Arena of Autonomous Driving (inc. Fields, Stakeholders, Players)
5. Customers and Their Mobility Behaviour (inc Societal, Expectations, New Segments)
6. Framework Conditions for Autonomous Driving (inc Norms, Standards, Ethics)
7. Impact on Vehicles (inc Vehicle Eco-System, Design, Interface, Cost and Safety)
8. Impact on Companies (inc Business Models, Value Chains, Sharing Economy, Insurance)
9. Impact on Society (inc Urban Development, Emerging Societies, Competitiveness)
10. What Needs to be Done (inc An Industry Agenda, Ten Point Plan)

The effective recommendations thus appear in Chapter 10 as the effective next steps.

For Automakers:
- Develop a Digital Company
- Change the Culture
- Renew the Structure
- Rethink the Product
- Cannabalise Your Business
- Increase Speed
- Invest in Partnerships
- Use the Data

For Governments:
- Create a Legal Framework
- Initiate Social Discourse
- Invest in Transport Infrastructure
- Invest in Communications Structure
- Co-opting Private and Public Transport
- Establishing Autonomous Mobility as Industry of the Future
- Develop Industry Clusters
- Integrating Autonomous Vehicles in Cities
- Promote Research, Development and Education
- Promoting Tests within Autonomous Vehicles

The recommendations however are essentially already well recognised and 'generic' as per those hot topics which must be addressed and molded to befit society and vice versa.

Thus mainstream automakers and their suppliers have for a long time been well aware of the building blocks required, and as such have been seeking to obtain and place the various pieces of the jigsaw, from next-generation battery possibilities, to  the latest advancements in 'roadscape antenni' (camaras, radar, lidar etc), to broadscale GPS mapping, to aero and control inspired 'vehicle platooning' to the emergent apps-based mobility platforms so beloved by the young.

And beyond such new era technical strategies recognition of the enormous effort and cost challenges faced by old guard corporations of running conventional yet complex  business whilst also transitioning, so adding further organigram comlexity and cost.

Hence the now recognised need for segment specific platform simplification together with greater scale to provide yet further economies.

So, whilst Tesla previously offered its 'open-source' software so as to try to gain first-mover advantage, now Volkswagen has (via sub-contract transplant manufacturing) offered one of its small car platforms for 'open-use' by its competitor, in the bid  to drive down conventional production costs so as to free-up capital for itself and other incumbents to better direct finances toward ever greater electrified and cyber-enabled vehicles of the future.

This is a somewhat unrecognised 'very big deal', since - after the examples JV platform projects between typically two players and the scale impetus behind mergers and acquisitions, - it finally seeks to provide for the Automotive Industrial Business Model change that the investment community have sought for nigh on 20 years; but which Automakers were reticent to grasp, given the loss of  individual corporate control over the complex design, development and production 'front-end' of their businesses - the arenas they typically knew most about and could best leverage even under JV terms.

(NB see 'Time for a Model Change' by Wormald and Maxton, Cambrdge University Press, released in 2004)

The book 'Autonomous Driving' ends with an Epilogue providing a scenario snapshot of the idealised picture in 2040.

Vehicle  Autonomy has become engrained as the everyday convention, and so all the conventional vehicles from cars to buses to refuse trucks are self-propelled and directed. Vehicle windows have become touch-screens, and interiors offer a digitally enhanced environment, from simple Info-tainment (as known today) to Augmented Reality regards the surrounding environment to Virtual Reality options.  

One example being...."allowing passengers to dive into a completely different world...(perhaps)...a journey through London in the year 1900 to experience the city in a totally different era....Or a picture of 2100 inspired by the ideas of designers, urban planners and architects".

This example obviously deployed as way to enthuse today's designers, urban planners and architects to 'build the future' in the autonomous image.

As expected, Data and Artificial intelligence run everything invisibly. People's everyday routines so well understood that the vehicles within the IoT are effectively waiting for use exactly on time. And creates the desired environment through favourite musicians' soundtracks etc. Transport might even become free for the 'last mile' journeys as corporations sponsor the shuttle cars from station to front door. Accidents very rarely happen and the previously immobile or limited (children, OAPs and disabled) have the same options as capable adults; hence they are more independent.

The book provvides a very good overview of the pros to be had from autonomous driving, they are easy to recognise.

But what of the unstated cons? Will people instead gradually feel themselves to be increasingly simply cogs inside the machine, even if it has been visually and audibly humanised as the 3D materialisation of Alexa or Siri?

Many PESTEL issues raising many questions still remain.

And although the media, disruptors and even car-makers themselves depict the Utopian ideal, the reality is that today the industry and society is very much in flux.
Thus in some ways today feel like the re-idealised of 1950s America's Futuramas (by GM, Ford and Chrysler) depicting a radio-wave, robotically controlled freeway system, but applied to both City and Inter-City.

For many reasons that future-scape never materialised.

That in itself should not undermine the idea of a distant fully autonomously driven society, and but let us not be over-excited with enthusiasm given the true Timescales involved, the need for so much Central Planning (possibly appearing Authoratarian/Totalitarian) and the reality of so many macro and micro-level variables that could likely hinder (but possibly quicken) the process and so destination date of such an outcome.

The complexity is huge, and today's existence of self-guided Teslas and other marques are very encouraging; although presently realistically limited to the on-highway scenarios of that  1950s dream. Yet the current increasingly urbanised autonomous experiments appear promising; even if wholly reliant upon the capabilities of the vehicles and little meaningful interaction with any form of AI assisted Intelligent Infrastructure.

As stated, on the vehicle front, BMW has made a prolific step forward with its i3 and successor cars. Arguably much more so than Tesla (whose own ambition concerns the full remit of combined clean energy and mobility). And not just from a materials perspective, since unlike Tesla's monocoques, the i3 is effectively body on chassis, so providing for a myriad of body-types, from country-side sportscar to small urban an or pick-up truck, so rapidly able to expand from its  centre-ground of a 5/3 door compact family hatchback.

Yet much more societal understanding requires insight and recognition by Government, Corporations, Academia and other stakeholders, to ensure the future is bright if it is to be autonomous.

That means effectively getting inside the heads of those with vision, from auto-designers to renowned architects: themselves ever more involved in expansive intelligent urban planning projects, that form new realms within and outside the emergent MegaCities of the world.

To do so politicians and policy-makers need to not simplify - as seen in the UK's Itrial Strategy White Paper with its few Grand Challenge Themes - but hone true understanding and awareness of the pertinent socio-economic trends and details that must be encompassed within our 'Intelligent Future'; and better explain in greater detail.

People are not stupid, even if busy in their lives and distracted by ever greater nonsense via screens. And what is left of the old British (ie Anglo-Saxon) middle class - the once silent majority - is increasingly infuriated to being perceived by the liberal political class as the mere remnants of yesteryear, in the overall global growth story.

They want the future economic growth story explained, so as to have faith and participate. Not simply unwittingly directed by social forces.

Here in the UK we have seen what was once David Cameron's idea of subtle 'mental nudging' progressively expanded into what might appears policy-attuned social engineering - through the omnipotence of the web, basic AI algorithms feeding 'suggested content' and all too obvious increase in deplorable 'social acting'.

Societal divisions created by  what appears ever more divergent 'them and us' camps : the culturally engrained 'brainwashed liberal' Left (literally acting en mass and in concert to gain social and financial power) and the increasingly 'intransigent, traditionalist ' Right (moving ever more right to oppose the socially transparent machinations of the Left in recognition of the immense highly-politicised fakery subsumed into everyday behaviour over the last 10-15 years).

As such the UK Government, Whitehall and senior commercial and industrial luminaries need to gain a good grasp of the details of PESTEL trends as espoused and lived by not only the West's baby-boomer, Gen X-ers, Gen-Yers and Millenials, at home and in the West. But also the new factions of globally aware yet also culturally sensitive thought leaders in the EM countries to which 'the West' will sell its services and products born from cyber-centrIc 'Industry 4.0' ambitions.

Perhaps start with 1990s Faith Popcorn, via 2000s Patric Dixon and into the oxymorinic 'Capitalistic-Marxist' Slavoj  Zizeck, then onto any centrist and objective Sociologists within the new crop from the BRICS and beyond.

In a post Brexit or even partial Brexit era, it will be the fusing of the UK's commercial and industrial capabilities to the rest of the world, that will be vital.

And given the enormity of Northern Europe's retained technical capabilities - as per the BMW i3 - that also means likely operating as a scientific, technical and cultural commercial brokerage house between nations.

Through the 1920s and 1930s it was very well recognised that "the business of America is business". That idiom must be echoed in a culturally sensitive manner internationally by the UK in the 2020s and 2030s.

The 'ideation' of autonomous vehicles should be able to be summed-up in the words of an old REM album title : "Automatic For the People", if not necessarily actually "By the People".

The mistakes of the very much socially-engineered Modernist tower blocks of the 1960s and 1970s - that replicated the Soviet bloc itself upon high but unrealistic ideals - did not take into account the perspective and foibles of its inhabitants.

Today's MegaCities, Intelligent Transport Systems and Autonomous Cars must not repeat the same mistake of not recognising specific human natures for what they are.

To expand upon the words of a very well known quietly spoken but insightful man...we cannot have 'automotive carbunkles' upon the worst of  'architectural carbunkles'. And nor should we export such to the rest of the world.