Speaker 1: Most people have heard of the Detroit Auto Show. It's
Speaker 1: where automakers come and show off their wares and the
Speaker 1: next season models. It's a great place to get a
Speaker 1: sense for trends in the North American auto market. But
Speaker 1: how about auto millability auto millability, Yes, with a letter
Speaker 1: D at the end, mobility, mobility, millability, auto mobility. I
Speaker 1: think it's for Detroit. So since it's been running alongside
Speaker 1: the Detroit Auto Show and it's a hub for mobility,
Speaker 1: innovation and tech, you're also seeing a lot of this
Speaker 1: tech innovation and the mobility space showing off also at
Speaker 1: the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. And there's just
Speaker 1: so much happening in this space. So while it can
Speaker 1: take up to five years from a concept to turn
Speaker 1: into an actual car keeping track, the innovation is actually
Speaker 1: coming out right now and how it's going to impact
Speaker 1: people and how goods move around in the future is
Speaker 1: something really to closely watch. And while we're on the
Speaker 1: topic of events, bienf is hosting our San Francisco Summit
Speaker 1: this upcoming February. It's one of six annual summits that
Speaker 1: we host at different locations around the world, and as
Speaker 1: you might expect from an event close to Silicon Valley,
Speaker 1: there's a bit of tech focus, but as you might
Speaker 1: also expect from b n EF, there is an energy
Speaker 1: focus too. But here's the special part. We also talk
Speaker 1: about how tech and energy converge with the mobility space,
Speaker 1: making it a pretty interesting place to think about the
Speaker 1: future of transport. So in today's episode of Switched On,
Speaker 1: Mark and I are going to interview Colin mccarricker, who
Speaker 1: is the strategic lead at be Enough for Advanced Transport Insight.
Speaker 1: He's going to take us through the transport team's ten
Speaker 1: predictions for in a note titled e VS and New
Speaker 1: Mobility Trends to watch in well even let you know
Speaker 1: a little bit about how his team did against their
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen predictions. You can access collins ten predictions on
Speaker 1: BF dot com, on the mobile app or via B
Speaker 1: and e F go on the Bloomberg terminal. And just
Speaker 1: a quick note, B ANF does not provide investment or
Speaker 1: strategy advice. Our full disclaimer is at the end of
Speaker 1: the show. Hey Colin, Hey Mark, thanks for coming in today.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about your ten predictions for now. All
Speaker 1: three of us in this room, me Dana Colin. We've
Speaker 1: all been here at BENF for about ten years now,
Speaker 1: and every year we've done this exercise. It started off
Speaker 1: as our company wide ten year predictions for everything, but
Speaker 1: back then it was really just wind and solar, and
Speaker 1: we've moved into more and more of these predictions as
Speaker 1: we've gone forward. Now today we brought Colin in to
Speaker 1: talk about what he sees. Colin, can you frame your
Speaker 1: ten predictions a bit for us, like why you do
Speaker 1: it and where it came about? Yeah, for sure. I
Speaker 1: think part of the reason we do it is because
Speaker 1: most of the time it's not what we're doing. We
Speaker 1: don't actually spend as much time on predictions as people
Speaker 1: think that we do. They often see our stuff in
Speaker 1: social media and they say, oh, BENF just all does
Speaker 1: forecasts and we're all talking about years ahead. Really, actually,
Speaker 1: what we're spending most of our time doing is building
Speaker 1: data sets, doing analysis about what's happening now, trying to
Speaker 1: help our clients navigate a changing landscape that's moving really quickly.
Speaker 1: So part of the reason to do the forecast is
Speaker 1: actually to step back from that step back from all
Speaker 1: this stuff that is happening really fast, and say, well,
Speaker 1: what do we think This actually means what do we
Speaker 1: think is going on in these industries that are changing
Speaker 1: really quickly. So a big part of it is just
Speaker 1: that um and it also helps shape our research agenda
Speaker 1: for the year ahead. So if we think every January, look,
Speaker 1: what do we think are the big things to watch?
Speaker 1: Then it also gives us an idea of what should
Speaker 1: we be gathering new data sets on, what should we
Speaker 1: be writing research on for the year ahead. So that's
Speaker 1: why we pause and and do these ten predictions every year.
Speaker 1: It's also fun. It's also fun to sit there and
Speaker 1: sort of prognosticated bed and say, okay, here's what here's
Speaker 1: here's one to watch, or here's an out there prediction,
Speaker 1: and then we tracked them through the year, which is
Speaker 1: more fun doing the predictions for the coming year or
Speaker 1: looking back on the previous year to see if you
Speaker 1: got it depends on how well you did. How did
Speaker 1: you do last year? I think we did pretty well.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of misses at last year. One of
Speaker 1: the big misses as we overshot on the total number
Speaker 1: of electric vehicle sales globally because China cut subsidies, were
Speaker 1: expecting them to do that, but they actually cut them
Speaker 1: a little deeper than we were expecting. So our number
Speaker 1: in China was overshot. But most of the other predictions
Speaker 1: that we made for last year actually came out looking
Speaker 1: pretty good. I think we we try and objectively score them.
Speaker 1: I don't know how how if we fully succeeded that,
Speaker 1: but I think they came out looking pretty good. So
Speaker 1: China cut their direct purchase incentives, and I want to
Speaker 1: know if they've done that because maybe air quality and
Speaker 1: emissions have dramatically improved, or is something there's something else
Speaker 1: going on there. I think there's something else going on.
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, the reason China is pushing on
Speaker 1: all this stuff is because of air quality and cities.
Speaker 1: It's also reduced oil imports, but there's also this big
Speaker 1: industrial policy angle to it. I wouldn't say they've achieved
Speaker 1: all their goals and they're done. I would say it's
Speaker 1: more just that direct purchase subsidies get really expensive beyond
Speaker 1: the first three or four percent of buyers, and China
Speaker 1: cross that threshold last year, and they had this roadmap
Speaker 1: for a while of saying, actually we're gonna face them out,
Speaker 1: and I would say they're just hitting that point where
Speaker 1: you can't subsidize the real mass market. At some point
Speaker 1: it has to take off on its own. So we're
Speaker 1: in this phase now where you're starting to wind down
Speaker 1: the direct purchase support in China and also starting to
Speaker 1: in the US, and there are more manufacturers moving into China.
Speaker 1: I think several of us have seen the videos of
Speaker 1: Elon Musk dancing in China and it was it a
Speaker 1: factory opening or something like that. If you haven't yet
Speaker 1: google it, it's it's a good time. Um, what do
Speaker 1: we think will change about the Chinese market over the
Speaker 1: course of the next year in the future, I guess
Speaker 1: more broadly. Yeah, So China's in this interesting transition where
Speaker 1: it's been subsidy driven growth for the last few years. Right,
Speaker 1: it's really remarkable growth, kind of a little over a
Speaker 1: million sold the last two years, and now they're switching
Speaker 1: to this much more supply side mechanism that forces the
Speaker 1: automakers to sell a certain percentage of all the vehicles.
Speaker 1: They still have to be electric or fuel cell, but
Speaker 1: most of them are going to be electric, so they
Speaker 1: but each one has their own choice on how the
Speaker 1: mix they want to use. Do they want to use
Speaker 1: plug in hybrids per revs. More fuel cell vehicles, even
Speaker 1: hybrids to bring down their overall fuel economy or improve
Speaker 1: their overall fuel economy. So in China we're sort of
Speaker 1: it's something other countries are gonna go through in the future,
Speaker 1: but you're in the middle of this transition from direct
Speaker 1: purchase support and subsidies driving growth to bigger policy mechanisms
Speaker 1: taking over and in theory pulling the market forward. China
Speaker 1: has a goal of of sales being electric or fuel cell. Again,
Speaker 1: most of them are gonna be electric bive. That's that's
Speaker 1: not that far away. We're in twenties now, and so
Speaker 1: that's kind of what one of the big things we're
Speaker 1: watching this year is can they keep those numbers growing?
Speaker 1: So we went straight into China. Was China your main
Speaker 1: prediction this year? Actually, I mean at a high level,
Speaker 1: the biggest part of prediction was actually saying Europe is
Speaker 1: the place to watch this year. So Europe again is
Speaker 1: sort of taking over some of the growth that we've
Speaker 1: seen in the last few years. That in China, you're
Speaker 1: probably going to see electric vehicle sales here go from
Speaker 1: around five thousand last year up to eight to nine
Speaker 1: thousand this year. Which is quite remarkable growth. And there
Speaker 1: as well, there's an interesting policy story. So because this
Speaker 1: market is still really in large part driven by policy
Speaker 1: support and policy mechanisms. The European Commission has a target
Speaker 1: for reducing CEO two emissions from transport, and automakers have
Speaker 1: to hit an average starting this year, and also that's
Speaker 1: getting really hard to meet. Most of them are not
Speaker 1: on track to meet it and are going to have
Speaker 1: to dramatically increase the number of plug in vehicles they
Speaker 1: sell in the next few years, starting this year, and
Speaker 1: so that's going to lead to a big search. And
Speaker 1: also we think some of them have sort of been
Speaker 1: delaying their efforts to sell levis in ten because they
Speaker 1: knew they get more credit for them in because there
Speaker 1: wasn't much reason in the last three months of nineteen
Speaker 1: if you sold a NV, you don't get much benefit
Speaker 1: for it as an automaker, but starting in twenty you do,
Speaker 1: it starts to reduce the fines that you would otherwise pay,
Speaker 1: So that's interesting too. We think they've been sort of
Speaker 1: building up an order book. If you win in and
Speaker 1: tried to buy one, and quite a few countries that
Speaker 1: was sort of oh, there's a three month way, so
Speaker 1: there's a four month wait, there's a battery supply issues,
Speaker 1: this sort of thinging. Uh, the those order books will
Speaker 1: get opened up again now and I think you start
Speaker 1: to see the numbers in Europe go up pretty quickly
Speaker 1: starting this year any markets, in particular Germany and also
Speaker 1: the UK. There's a change to the benefit and kind
Speaker 1: tax on company cars in the UK starting in April.
Speaker 1: That's going to have a big impact on the market,
Speaker 1: so you're gonna see UK numbers probably go up quite
Speaker 1: a bit. And the German automakers are getting going finally.
Speaker 1: It's taken some time, but they're they're now starting to
Speaker 1: launch their more competitive models. The really big one to
Speaker 1: watch is probably I D three, Volkswagen's i D three
Speaker 1: in Germany, UM, other parts of Europe as well, but
Speaker 1: particularly in Germany and the Nordics. UM. The thing is
Speaker 1: timing will be interesting though they've been touting it a lot,
Speaker 1: saying twenties the big year, but now they're sort of saying, well, actually,
Speaker 1: volume deliveries don't start until August. You could see they
Speaker 1: get pushed back and it may not be really until
Speaker 1: Q four in Europe that you see the numbers really
Speaker 1: start to go. But that's kind of one of the
Speaker 1: ones we're watching too, is a lot of these new
Speaker 1: models launching in European markets to help automakers meet their
Speaker 1: CEO two targets. One of the things you had a
Speaker 1: prediction about were plug in hybrids verse is ev versus
Speaker 1: maybe traditional hybrid. So let's talk about that a little
Speaker 1: bit in in light of these models that are coming out.
Speaker 1: What's going to look like? Yeah, I mean, one of
Speaker 1: the things we said this year was there's probably gonna
Speaker 1: be a bit of a resurgence in sales of plug
Speaker 1: in hybrids and more interest in them. And there's a
Speaker 1: couple of reasons for that. One of them is what
Speaker 1: I just alluded to, that automakers are forced to improve
Speaker 1: the environmental footprint of their all the cars they sell,
Speaker 1: and plug and hybrids are treated pretty favorably by the
Speaker 1: regulations for that, so they're gonna push a lot of
Speaker 1: them into the market as a way of bringing down
Speaker 1: their their average CEO two emissions. The other thing that's
Speaker 1: kind of interesting is that ranges on plug in hybrids
Speaker 1: are creeping upwards, so you start to get more of
Speaker 1: them that have kind of sixty seventy kilometers of usable
Speaker 1: range in electric only mode. The Toyota Rev four plug
Speaker 1: in hybrid comes out next next this year. I keep
Speaker 1: saying next year, but we're in this year. It happens
Speaker 1: this year about sixty kilometers range. That starts to get
Speaker 1: to a point where you can do a lot of
Speaker 1: daily commutes in electric only mode. And that's quite interesting
Speaker 1: because if you have a garage and you have a
Speaker 1: place to plug it in, probably will you'll go, and
Speaker 1: you'll go and do that, and then it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: that you didn't go fully electric if your kilometers went electric.
Speaker 1: The challenge, though, is the flip side of that is
Speaker 1: do people drive them in electric mode? And there's kind
Speaker 1: of mixed evidence on this. There's some data showing that yeah,
Speaker 1: most plug in hybrid owners are plugging the man at
Speaker 1: night and are diligently doing that and and driving a
Speaker 1: lot on electric mode. And there's other evidence that suggests
Speaker 1: in some cases you're just lugging around a heavy battery
Speaker 1: and making a very inefficient hybrid out of it. So
Speaker 1: I think what you will need to see for regulators
Speaker 1: to keep treating plug in hybrids favorably is more evidence
Speaker 1: that they're being driven in electric modes. So I think
Speaker 1: you're going to see more automakers who are selling a
Speaker 1: lot of these trying to show that actually people are
Speaker 1: using tracking charging events, trying to behave trying behavioral incentives
Speaker 1: to get people to charge these things up at night. Dana,
Speaker 1: you're a you're a plug in hybrid owner. What's your
Speaker 1: I'm a plug in hybrid owner. Um. I mean I
Speaker 1: think that you know, as compared to a hybrid, you
Speaker 1: pay premium for a plug in hybrid. But I think
Speaker 1: this actually seges really well to another prediction that you had,
Speaker 1: and that's regarding charging infrastructure. First, keep plug in or
Speaker 1: not well, so I'm getting to that. Okay, sorry, So
Speaker 1: we do not have off street parking. We have to
Speaker 1: plug in. You don't want to. You don't want to
Speaker 1: plug in on Sunday night because I only use my
Speaker 1: car on the weekends. You don't want to plug in
Speaker 1: Sunday night and then let the battery lose charge until Saturday.
Speaker 1: So it's pretty much a wake up Saturday morning plug
Speaker 1: It takes two hours to get all the way from
Speaker 1: a charge, even if you've got a plug in battery.
Speaker 1: So I actually am thinking next time around full electric
Speaker 1: because I would have to charge less frequently and I
Speaker 1: want to be low emissions. And then if I'm going
Speaker 1: to go somewhere outside of London, just rent a rent
Speaker 1: a car that's petrol a diesel. Yeah. I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting propositions starting to emerge around that, right,
Speaker 1: and if when we talk further out, not just predictions
Speaker 1: for this year, we sort of say, look, here's our
Speaker 1: long term adoption trajectory and what we think happens. I
Speaker 1: think if and that depends a lot on evs eventually
Speaker 1: becoming cheaper than internal combustion engine vehicles. That's a thesis
Speaker 1: that we have based on years of looking at the
Speaker 1: battery experience curve for lithiumon batteries, and eventually we get there.
Speaker 1: You could debate the timing, but I think you'll start
Speaker 1: to see some really interesting services and business models come
Speaker 1: in to fill those gaps for the people who are
Speaker 1: sort of saying, well, look once a month, I do
Speaker 1: this drive on the weekends. Um, there's a rental. There
Speaker 1: should be rental agreements, And you start to see that
Speaker 1: in places like Norway, packages that come up that's sort
Speaker 1: of ten days a year. That's meant to fill the gap.
Speaker 1: I think you see some more interesting things start to
Speaker 1: show up on that front too. So I do see
Speaker 1: chargers showing up all over the place, and I think
Speaker 1: that our our data supporting that. So what are we
Speaker 1: seeing in terms of charging infrastructure globally next year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's a story still of really remarkable growth
Speaker 1: UM last in eighteen. At the end of twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: or a little over six hundred thousand public charging points installed.
Speaker 1: That's individual connectors, not different sites, but six hundred thousand
Speaker 1: points the end of twenty nineteen, or about eight hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty thousand we're calling one point two million at
Speaker 1: the end of twenties, so this is still growing really fast.
Speaker 1: What we're seeing right now is pretty interesting investments from
Speaker 1: the big oil gas companies and from the big electric utilities,
Speaker 1: and also a lot of still government support. In many cases.
Speaker 1: UM it depends a lot where you are actually in
Speaker 1: large parts of Europe, it's it's really being driven by
Speaker 1: oil and gas and electric utilities and some pure play
Speaker 1: operators also building these. But we're expecting a pretty steady
Speaker 1: increase in the amount built. But there are still big
Speaker 1: questions around the exact optimal charging speed, whether it's a
Speaker 1: really fast charger on the highway side it's two hours
Speaker 1: fast or pretty slow. It's it's pretty slow. I mean
Speaker 1: plug in hybrids is a bit different than charging battery electrics.
Speaker 1: The fastest chargers right now that are out there in
Speaker 1: theory can support three kill a lot charging, which gets
Speaker 1: you falling around fifteen minutes. There's not many cars that
Speaker 1: can support that yet though, so there there's sort of
Speaker 1: this race to say, Okay, can the car support it,
Speaker 1: can the charger support it? Also, can the battery support
Speaker 1: it without significant degradation? And then can the grid infrastructure
Speaker 1: surrounding the chargers support it? And these things kind of
Speaker 1: inched forward. So there are in theory cars that can
Speaker 1: support charging, but they're very premium. They're very high end.
Speaker 1: So one of the things we flagged this year to
Speaker 1: watch is actually more automakers trying to bring that down
Speaker 1: into lower segment or less premium cars. So Shun Diane
Speaker 1: Kia announced earlier in nineteen that they were going to
Speaker 1: start bringing that in fro. You have to redesign the
Speaker 1: vehicle off fair bit, you have to move to architecture
Speaker 1: in the vehicle to support charging that high rate. There's
Speaker 1: costs associated with that, but there may be some benefits
Speaker 1: as well. So I think you'll see more automakers saying
Speaker 1: we're going to try and bring really rapid charging down
Speaker 1: into the vehicles. But again, it doesn't mean that every
Speaker 1: charger you go too is going to support that. So
Speaker 1: the charging network is still going to be fragmented, both
Speaker 1: in terms of the speeds that they operate at, the
Speaker 1: physical standards that are used. There's different ones in different
Speaker 1: parts of the world that are backed by different automakers
Speaker 1: as well, the plans, the business plans and pricing plans
Speaker 1: that they're under are also going to be fragmented. So
Speaker 1: it's still I think is still gonna a year where
Speaker 1: you read a lot of stories in newspapers about so
Speaker 1: and so who is stranded. It is getting better, it's
Speaker 1: getting a lot better. There's a huge amount being built,
Speaker 1: but I still think there's work. There's a significant amount
Speaker 1: of work to be done and a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of groups working hard to try and solve that.
Speaker 1: Right now, Okay, so let's talk about the batteries, and
Speaker 1: you're talking about fast slow in your ten predictions, talk
Speaker 1: about high nickel magnese cobalt and how you know it
Speaker 1: was something that was this particular battery composition was something
Speaker 1: that we were thinking was far out in the future
Speaker 1: and now is suddenly upon us. What is so wonderful
Speaker 1: about these batteries and why is it such a technical leap?
Speaker 1: I will just say that I think we had a
Speaker 1: more aggressive view at BNF as to how fast they
Speaker 1: were going to hit the market than any other kind
Speaker 1: of industry commentators did, So we'll give ourselves a pat
Speaker 1: on the back for that. But just generally, I think
Speaker 1: what you've seen is a move towards higher energy density
Speaker 1: batteries that allows you to cut material out of the battery.
Speaker 1: That cuts your material cost. It also means you need
Speaker 1: less kill of what hours to get a given amount
Speaker 1: of range. So we've been sort of moving through this
Speaker 1: family of nickel manganese cobalt batteries. So what we're seeing
Speaker 1: is that the latest generation of that is called an
Speaker 1: n m C A one one battery. And yeah, as
Speaker 1: you point out, the thinking on that a few years
Speaker 1: ago was that, look, we won't really ever see this
Speaker 1: in commercial applications until well into the ties. I was
Speaker 1: in um Guang show in China in December, and I
Speaker 1: wrote in a taxi that had an an m C
Speaker 1: eight one one battery in it, and there are other
Speaker 1: models that are coming to so ho. You know, I
Speaker 1: had to ask my colleague who was with me, one
Speaker 1: of our analysts in the China team, at which battery
Speaker 1: chemistry uses, and she was very on top of and
Speaker 1: so they're using a new n m C a one battery.
Speaker 1: So full credit to she got okay, So yeah, I
Speaker 1: think there's there's interesting stuff on the battery chemistry. It
Speaker 1: is continuing to evolve. The main thing, the main message
Speaker 1: out of that, I think that it still surprises me
Speaker 1: is that people still aren't clocking that battery chemistry and
Speaker 1: technology is still improving. We're still in the early stage
Speaker 1: of this. The amount that it's changed in the last
Speaker 1: ten years since we first looked at this stuff till
Speaker 1: now is incredible, and scale is really what drives innovation,
Speaker 1: and the scale that we're at now evs are now
Speaker 1: the largest source of lithiumaon battery man. Previously it was
Speaker 1: our phones, um or other consumer electronics, and that really
Speaker 1: jump started the whole thing and have us a supply
Speaker 1: chain and all those sorts of good things evs and
Speaker 1: the now the largest source of demand for for batteries.
Speaker 1: And I think you're going to see that scale just
Speaker 1: keeps driving more innovation and that opens up new niches
Speaker 1: for the market, which drives more scale and drive more innovation.
Speaker 1: Can we go back to China for just a minute.
Speaker 1: Actually we were just in China with with Guangzho. Tesla
Speaker 1: just built another Gigo factory there, right, they did in
Speaker 1: CHINAI And in the note it said something to the
Speaker 1: effect of elon musk will really make it difficult for
Speaker 1: startup EV companies in China. Is that true? Is tests
Speaker 1: like going to compete in China or is there enough
Speaker 1: muscle there to muscle note? I think Tesla's going to
Speaker 1: compete in China. I think, um, what you're what you
Speaker 1: saw over the last few years or quite a few
Speaker 1: EV startups launched in China, a whole range of them,
Speaker 1: a lot of them backed by kind of Internet or
Speaker 1: tech money, and they pulled in a lot of talent
Speaker 1: to they hired a lot of really good people and
Speaker 1: some of them are legitimate contenders. Um. But Tesla has
Speaker 1: built that plant faster than a lot of people expected.
Speaker 1: And I know it's faster than some of those EV
Speaker 1: startups expected. They were expecting to still be a year
Speaker 1: where they had time to kind of grow into the
Speaker 1: market a little bit more, ramp up their own production,
Speaker 1: get their more competitive models out. But then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, the Model three, which is is pretty competitively
Speaker 1: priced in China, is there, and I think that is
Speaker 1: really hard for them. It might not be as hard
Speaker 1: for some of the big global automakers who are also
Speaker 1: launching their reviews into the China market, but I think
Speaker 1: specifically for the Chinese EV startups, they're a formidable force.
Speaker 1: Having been in Tesla that's in self driving mode that
Speaker 1: sort of didn't know whether it should stay on the
Speaker 1: road or not, I think this is a good time
Speaker 1: to then also bring up um the self driving space.
Speaker 1: So you've got self driving and then you've got the
Speaker 1: advanced driver assist systems, and that was one of the
Speaker 1: things that we need to watch over the next year.
Speaker 1: Am I going to be having a robo taxi picking
Speaker 1: me up anytime soon? That's probably more than a million
Speaker 1: dollar question. It might be a billion or there might
Speaker 1: even get t on that somewhere in the future. Yes,
Speaker 1: because we want one Okay, Mark wants one days is
Speaker 1: definitely the prediction that we put down this time was
Speaker 1: that actually on self driving cars in sort of passenger applications,
Speaker 1: that progress is gonna be pretty incremental. This year can
Speaker 1: be pretty incremental. You're going to see more miles driven,
Speaker 1: You're going to see more data on disengagement rates, You're
Speaker 1: gonna see a lot of progress in China actually they're
Speaker 1: pushing that forward as well as in California where there's
Speaker 1: a lot of testing going on. But actually on autonomy,
Speaker 1: some of the most interesting things to watch are probably
Speaker 1: going to be more on non passenger applications. If you
Speaker 1: think about where autonomous driving makes a lot of sense,
Speaker 1: there is this huge obvious opportunity in driving people around,
Speaker 1: but that's also in some ways the hardest thing to
Speaker 1: do right um, and some of the things around logistics,
Speaker 1: delivery vans, street cleaners, that sort of stuff probably is
Speaker 1: a better nearer term application for some of this. So
Speaker 1: I think you'll see more progress on that and more
Speaker 1: recognition that when we play the timeline out of where
Speaker 1: this stuff comes, that's that might be where you can
Speaker 1: monetize this stuff a little bit sooner. Then on the
Speaker 1: advanced driver assist part. That's actually gonna be a big
Speaker 1: year in that. That's where we're looking at things like
Speaker 1: automatic front collision avoidance, automatic breaking for that, UM lane assist,
Speaker 1: which both, by the way, work brilliantly. I have had
Speaker 1: cars override my apparently poor driving and save me on
Speaker 1: a few occasions with both natasist and front collision. That
Speaker 1: is an ADAS system doing exactly what it should. So
Speaker 1: I think we actually the regulations are also pushing that
Speaker 1: direction as well. So new regulations in Europe are going
Speaker 1: to require more of those features. UM So I think
Speaker 1: you're going to see a lot more of that rolled out.
Speaker 1: There's still a bit of a debate on whether it
Speaker 1: makes everything safer or not. There is still some room
Speaker 1: to kind of missus some of these things because it
Speaker 1: can allow you as a driver to disengage a bit.
Speaker 1: And and this has been the thing with Tesla Tesla autopilot.
Speaker 1: There's this debate raging about whether it's making driving safer.
Speaker 1: Tesla claims it is, and then they're sort of skeptics
Speaker 1: are saying no, it's making it's making it much more dangerous.
Speaker 1: I think they're both valid arguments. It depends a lot
Speaker 1: on how people, as with a lot of technology, how
Speaker 1: people choose to use it, and and probably how you
Speaker 1: communicate what you should do with it as well. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's say let's say we're back to transporting people around. Um,
Speaker 1: we have this universe of shared mobility, and you know
Speaker 1: that's definitely got a local element to it. So it's
Speaker 1: whether you're in a city or your rural but you've
Speaker 1: got what you said. The big ones are d D, Uber, Grab, Lift, Go,
Speaker 1: check Ola. These companies, I think many people in the
Speaker 1: industry have been watching their I p O s UM
Speaker 1: you know, some in some cases to limited fanfare. Uh.
Speaker 1: And now you're also looking at some you're looking at
Speaker 1: some local governments thinking about how they're going to regulate
Speaker 1: them differently. And the thing that initially popped into my
Speaker 1: head when I was thinking about some of the implications
Speaker 1: for these now very large fleets of drivers is are
Speaker 1: these companies to some degree too big to fail both
Speaker 1: by the customers, the drivers and then the company is
Speaker 1: now operating on such a global scale. With these I
Speaker 1: think they can still fail. I think still out of room.
Speaker 1: There's still a lot of ways for it to go wrong.
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the things you are going to
Speaker 1: see this year, and I agree these things are These
Speaker 1: are big companies now, and I mean we tap we
Speaker 1: tally up the users of right hanging apps, so for
Speaker 1: one point two billion users um really remarkable growth for
Speaker 1: something that wasn't there not that long ago. If you
Speaker 1: go to a conference and ask how many people took
Speaker 1: an uber or lift and the last week it will
Speaker 1: be most, it will be most people, So that that's
Speaker 1: pretty remarkable growth. But I still think it can go
Speaker 1: quite wrong. So the one that we're watching a lot
Speaker 1: is regulatory pushback from cities. So there's a growing body
Speaker 1: of evidence saying, look, these things are adding to congestion
Speaker 1: and we're not happy about that. So there's regulations pushing
Speaker 1: them more towards at least if you're adding to congestion,
Speaker 1: don't also be worsening their quality. So pushing them towards vs.
Speaker 1: Making that link between shared mobility and electrification stronger, but
Speaker 1: also just open questions about how many of them should
Speaker 1: there be allowed to be and and and what's the
Speaker 1: optimal mix of these services well, and cities taking a
Speaker 1: more activist stance. I do think though, as you point out,
Speaker 1: once you get in tens of thousands of drivers and
Speaker 1: more importantly maybe millions of users. Then if you go
Speaker 1: and pull it out and and say as a government
Speaker 1: and a city city regulator that they're not allowed to operate,
Speaker 1: you will face some real blowback. So these groups have
Speaker 1: a have a position, have a good position in the
Speaker 1: market in some ways. I think the bigger risk is
Speaker 1: still can you make money? Right when you look at
Speaker 1: the financials of some of them, this story around exactly
Speaker 1: how they're going to get to making money is still
Speaker 1: a bit unknown. So you've got scale, but you've got scale,
Speaker 1: and you're burning through a lot of cash right now.
Speaker 1: So I think that's more of the part we're watching
Speaker 1: is is there a credible way to get to these
Speaker 1: things being financially self sustainable. If they are, then I
Speaker 1: think they'll find a way to navigate the regulations and
Speaker 1: continue to continue to deliver their services. But if they don't,
Speaker 1: then that could be a pretty potent combination of regulatory
Speaker 1: blowback and financial problems. So you have your ten predictions.
Speaker 1: You know some of them might be most surprising to
Speaker 1: you or your favorite predictions. No matter what you say,
Speaker 1: I already have my favorite or most surprising prediction for
Speaker 1: it was when I saw over the break a picture
Speaker 1: of an electric forward Mustang. So what have you got?
Speaker 1: What is your favorite prediction for I think this. I
Speaker 1: think the one that's going to catch people by surprise
Speaker 1: a little bit is how fast things are going to
Speaker 1: move in Europe. We talked about that already A bit
Speaker 1: is like this has been building up a little bit.
Speaker 1: People are quite serious at the regulatory level and pushing this.
Speaker 1: I mean, you see the European Commission making long term
Speaker 1: commitments around net zero and many countries following that too.
Speaker 1: And we've been talking a bit about this gap between
Speaker 1: long term ambition and short term targets. But I really
Speaker 1: think one of the big things that's going to surprise
Speaker 1: people is how fast it goes in Europe and how
Speaker 1: quickly the gap between Europe and China closes by the
Speaker 1: end of this year. So the message for a long
Speaker 1: time that we've been telling a lot of people have
Speaker 1: been saying, is like China is blowing everybody away on this,
Speaker 1: their way ahead on this. I think by the end
Speaker 1: of gap between China and Europe is going to look
Speaker 1: a lot smaller, and it may even start to look
Speaker 1: like the approach in Europe may be more sustainable in
Speaker 1: the long term, let's see. Okay, So my favorite prediction
Speaker 1: on the list was one we haven't discussed yet today,
Speaker 1: and that is that it's it's actually complete departure from
Speaker 1: this electric vehicle space, at least on the land standpoint.
Speaker 1: It has to do with marine and aviation, and that
Speaker 1: we anticipate seeing some progress, that we expect to see
Speaker 1: some real innovation in both of those areas. Could you
Speaker 1: actually elaborate a little bit on that for our listeners
Speaker 1: today and what we might be able to see in
Speaker 1: marine and aviation. Yeah, we'd like to try and put
Speaker 1: at least kind of one out there, one each each year.
Speaker 1: And this was this was the last one on the list,
Speaker 1: and it was just sort of saying there's there's interesting
Speaker 1: things happening around the edges on on aviation and around
Speaker 1: marine shipping too. So if we break them down, starting
Speaker 1: with aviation, there's all this stuff about vertical takeoff and
Speaker 1: landing and the taxis and this sort of flying car
Speaker 1: stuff right there, there's that part of it, but there
Speaker 1: is also this growing pressure on airlines to have a
Speaker 1: story for how they're going to exist in a carbon
Speaker 1: constrained world, and most of the short term is going
Speaker 1: to be about buying offsets to get someone to plant
Speaker 1: tree in somewhere else, or maybe bio fuels biojet as
Speaker 1: a way of offsetting some of that. But I think
Speaker 1: one of the things you'll see this year is some
Speaker 1: of the biggest players start to making make more investments
Speaker 1: in groups trying to develop hybrid aircraft and fully electric aircraft.
Speaker 1: The technology isn't really there yet for fully electric aircraft
Speaker 1: in terms of the energy density needed to take any
Speaker 1: reasonable number of passengers any anything more than a really
Speaker 1: short hop, but there are a lot of short hops
Speaker 1: out there, and you can start somewhere. So you see
Speaker 1: some groups starting to make announcements on that. I think
Speaker 1: you're going to see more investment and more commitment there
Speaker 1: as well, and potentially hydrogens in the running there too.
Speaker 1: Um So I think there's gonna be some interesting things
Speaker 1: around how you might decarbonize aviation. On marine, I think
Speaker 1: some of the applications are a bit nearer terms, So
Speaker 1: you're already starting to see some some ferries other near
Speaker 1: shore vessels kind of making commitments and and already trying
Speaker 1: to electrify. And I think that's actually going to be
Speaker 1: quite interesting to watch as well. So you've seen a
Speaker 1: few big ferry operators saying we're switching vehicles, we're switching
Speaker 1: our fleets over um. They're The interesting thing is they
Speaker 1: can do it kind of incrementally. They can add battery packs,
Speaker 1: add add more battery capacity as they go. Hydrogen is
Speaker 1: also still in the running there, but most of what
Speaker 1: we're seeing so far is on the electric side. I
Speaker 1: went and saw a big ferry line in Gothenburg recently
Speaker 1: in Sweden, and there they were started doing it in
Speaker 1: three steps. The first step was just for sort of
Speaker 1: port maneuvers and bow thrusters and things. Then the next
Speaker 1: step that they were going to do this year was
Speaker 1: around enough battery capacity to get them well out of
Speaker 1: the harbor and then to the open seas. And then
Speaker 1: the third phase was going to be to actually do
Speaker 1: the crossing between Sweden and Denmark. So and that's a
Speaker 1: heavily subsidized project, of course, and that doesn't mean it's
Speaker 1: commercially viable right away, but that actually tells you that
Speaker 1: you can kind of experiment with this stuff and and
Speaker 1: slowly incrementally get there. And I think that's really important
Speaker 1: for marine operators who are very concerned with safety and
Speaker 1: and we'll want to do things slowly incrementally. It doesn't
Speaker 1: solve long ocean going freight that sort of thing. We're
Speaker 1: still just talking about the stuff around uh and at
Speaker 1: least with batteries and that sort of thing and electricity
Speaker 1: um is more than your shot opportunity ocean going vessels
Speaker 1: carrying lots of freight. You have to get a bit
Speaker 1: more radical with your designs or people talking about everything
Speaker 1: from nuclear reactors to hydrogen for that sector. But that's
Speaker 1: that's gonna be a very difficult one to decarbonize, Collin.
Speaker 1: It is always great having you in the studio. Thank
Speaker 1: you for sharing your ten predictions with us today. Thanks Dana,
Speaker 1: Thanks Mark, always going to be here. Bloomberginny F is
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Speaker 1: This recording does not constitute, nor should it be construed
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