ICDP's blog

As everyone in the European motor industry must be aware, last week Stellantis held dealer meetings across Europe to announce that they were terminating all existing dealer contracts, some of which have only been in place for a couple years, and would enter into discussions with a reduced number of partners about new contracts.

Foxconn, the Taiwanese-headquartered contract manufacturer of a range of consumer electronics products, with a client list that includes Amazon, Apple, Dell, Google and Lenovo, announced last October a new electric car platform, called ‘MIH’, which they said would be the “android system of the EV industry”.

t’s been a busy couple weeks for those following the development of autonomous cars – or at least the capabilities and regulations that may enable autonomy. Last week, Elon Musk tweeted that Tesla hopes to roll out “version 9 of its Full Self-Driving software” in the EU “hopefully this summer” and that the functionality will “blow your mind”.

Polestar continue their entry into European markets, and last week they opened a new test drive centre close to my home. They have two ‘Spaces’ so far in the UK, one in London, the second in Manchester with two more due to open in Birmingham and Glasgow by the end of this year, further additions planned for 2022.

Last week the Shanghai Auto Show opened its doors, with the only evidence of the changed world we now live in being a requirement for a negative Covid test to gain entry. Change was however evident in another way, and this was one which will have a longer-lasting impact on the industry and society than Covid.

We are not really any the wiser about what shape the economic recovery will be after the worst effects of the pandemic have passed. I was obviously premature just under a year ago talking about the recovery from the pandemic, and the ‘elephant in the room’ being the mood of the public when released from lockdown, but the question remains valid even whilst lockdowns and restrictions continue.

Whilst I appreciate that many readers of this blog will be facing quite different conditions, ‘non-essential retail’ reopens in England today, April 12th.(Other parts of the UK have slightly different timetables).This includes car dealers, who have been operating ‘click and collect’ for sales and socially distanced aftersales for over three months now.

When discussing the customer buying journey with a few members over the last few weeks, the subject of vehicle handover has come up. Over the last few months, there has been a lot of innovation to allow a socially distanced handover, either with the salesperson outside the car, or through using video to give the customer a self-help guide.

In my blog last week, I referred to the challenges that complexity brings to automotive distribution, in terms of the customer journey and being able to match a customer requirement with an available vehicle. A conversation later in the week with a good friend in the industry, Philip Nothard at Cox Automotive, brought us onto a related topic of improving stock turn in the used car business.

The car industry has moved on a long way from the days of Henry Ford when he recognised the negative impact of product variety on his manufacturing process.

To many commentators, the official announcement last week by Volvo Cars that they would move to an ‘online only’ model (their press release headline) coincident with a move to only pure electric models being available from 2030 marked the end of the dealership.

It feels like there is a barely a day that passes without seeing a reference to a car manufacturer who is anticipating ballooning revenues from connected services over the next decade. In a number of cases, this includes setting up a new business unit to offer these services.

My blog this week is a couple days late due to some urgent client commitments, but on this subject, I could delay a year or two, and it would still be topical. However, there have been a number of stories in the press recently which all in one way or the other related to the potential growth of hydrogen as fuel source for cars and other forms of transport.

The aftermarket is inherently slow to change – analogies with the time it takes for a supertanker to change course are common

On Thursday last week, Auto1 made a spectacular debut on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, raising €1.8 billion, with a first day surge to 49% above the floatation price. The IPO put a billion Euros into the Auto1 war chest, which the company has said will be used to accelerate their development of their B2C offer – AutoHero.

There are many challenges to the implementation of fully autonomous cars, able to operate totally without a driver on public roads, so the announcement last week that autox – a venture backed by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba had launched a driverless robotaxi on the streets of Shenzhen in Southern China was significant.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about Apple and Tesla and their respective involvement in the car industry. Apple is obviously a tech stock by virtue of its current product offer, and Tesla is treated as one, rather than part of the traditional auto industry. We have become familiar with the high valuations achieved on the stock markets by companies like Tesla and newer start-ups such as Nio and Rivian.

Today, a deal was finalised between Hedin Bil, the 13th ranked dealer group in Europe, and Ford Motor Company for the sale of the Swedish Ford national sales company (NSC) to Hedin Bil. As a result, Hedin Bil will not only be the largest dealer for Ford in Sweden, but also act as the independent distributor for the brand.