As someone charged with looking into the future, Toscan Bennett, vice president strategy and planning for Opel, is finding it harder and harder to make predictions.
The auto industry, he said, is in a state of unprecedented change and making predictions is harder than it has been in the past 50 years with changes in ownership models, the rise of ride and car share, connectivity, automated driving and electrification.
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Bennett said: “Globally, we are trying to lead the disruption with our moves in the US into car and ride share with Lyft and Maven while with OnStar no one is more connected than we are.”
At the Paris show, he added Opel was again taking a lead with the introduction of the Ampera E, an electric car with a 500km range.
“This car really is a game changer. All of a sudden range anxiety disappears, a lot of manufacturers are announcing electrification plans but the Ampera E is here now.”
The car, sold as the Chevrolet Bolt in the US, goes on sale in Europe next spring at prices yet to be announced. Bennett added: “Pricing will be very competitive, in the US the Bolt sells for US$37,500 and federal incentives bring this down to just under $30,000.”
Looking into his crystal ball, Bennett sees continued growth in the SUV and crossover segments. All the research points to customers wanting to have high seating positions and easy ingress and egress. With the increase of car and ride share will ownership models change?
“Again that’s difficult to predict. In urban areas certainly people may find ownership in the classical sense less attractive due to many things such as cost, congestion and the availability of parking but in suburbs and rural areas car ownership will remain important.”
In the US, GM is trialling car share schemes and Bennett said that its Maven car share will also be trialled in Europe with an announcement due next year. In the meantime OnStar, launched in Europe last year, is now being rolled out in other markets and further features are being added such as ‘find my car’ for use in crowded car parks, a vehicle tracker if the car is stolen and destination finder which allows the sat nav to be programmed remotely via a mobile phone app.
Fully autonomous cars will not be with us for some time yet although technology is not the limiting factor. Bennett added: “Much of the technology is available now but there are other factors such as regulations and gaining the trust of customers. Electrification will accelerate. There is a lot of debate about the rate of acceleration, part of it will be driven by CO2 regulations and a genuine desire among customers to be green. I really think the Ampera E with its range could be a tipping point. how many will we sell? As many as we can make.”
What are we likely to see fewer of in the future? “Some segments like sports cars are already quite small,” Bennett said. “MPVs are in decline as are three-door bodystyles – but SUVs just grow and grow.”
