Why do we own a car? Of course, to move freely. With your car, you can easily and quickly move to your destination at anytime and anywhere. However, the development of technology is creating an environment where anyone can enjoy the freedom of movement without your own car. At the same time, people are starting to see cars as a means of transportation rather than a property.
The era in which individuals do not own cars can be a crisis for automakers. Ironically, however, it is the automakers that are driving these changes. As the times change, they are building a new environment for using mobility. So, how will these changes change our real life? Here are the details of how mobility is changing and what global automakers are doing.
We have been using shared cars for a long time - rental cars while traveling or carpooling with a co-worker close to where we live. However, advances in ICT have revolutionized the accessibility of shared cars. For example, to use a rental car, you had to visit the company in person, sign a contract, and then pick up the car. Now, all you need is a smartphone to find a nearby shared car and use it by the hour, or you can have the shared car come to your doorstep.
With the development of ICT technology, access to shared cars is increasing, various types of services are appearing, and the concept of shared cars is becoming more subdivided than in the past. Car sharing is similar to the traditional car rental business, but you can easily rent a car using a mobile platform instead of renting a car through a sales office like SoCar or Green Car in Korea. Ride-sharing, like Uber Pool, connects drivers who own a car and passengers with similar destinations. Deal Car is a car-hailing company that allows you to call shared cars to any location you want. Ride-hailing connects transportation service providers and passengers like Kakao Taxi does.
Global automakers are expanding their influence in the shared mobility market by directly entering the business or investing in promising startups. Daimler and BMW merged their ride-sharing services, Car2Go and DriveNow, to establish a service called ShareNow to strengthen competitiveness in the ride-sharing market. And while supplying cars to Careem, the largest ride-hailing service company in the Middle East, Hyundai Motor Group is also investing in OLA, India’s largest ride-hailing service, and Grab, Southeast Asia’s largest sharing service, to expand their car-sharing services. Recently, they have strengthened their partnership with Grab and are launching Grab ride-hailing pilot services using Hyundai's electric vehicles in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam.
Subscription services started out as publications such as newspapers and magazines, and went beyond content businesses such as music, movies, and dramas - and now they are establishing themselves as a new way of using mobility. The difference between the mobility subscription service and the shared mobility service is that it uses a shared car, but it can only be used for a long period of time as if you own your own car, and you can experience various car models according to your needs. For example, you can use a fuel-efficient model while you are using a car often, but you can change it to a high-performance car or SUV if you need it.
Mobility subscription service is rapidly expanding, centering on global automobile companies that produce cars themselves and have a variety of models. Overseas markets include Cadillac's 'Book by Cadillac', Volvo's 'Care by Volvo', Porsche's 'Porsche Passport', BMW's 'Access by BMW' and Toyota's 'Kinto One'. In Korea, there are mobility subscription services such as Hyundai's 'Hyundai Selection', Kia's 'Kia Flex', and Genesis' 'Genesis Spectrum'.
The subscription e-commerce market is growing rapidly every year. Mobility subscription service, which allows consumers to enjoy easier choices and reasonable costs by providing programs tailored to individual customers, is also expected to continue to grow in the future.
Ride Pooling is an area-based shared mobility service that allows users to call a vehicle from a desired location and ride to their destination. The use of the service is similar to the ride-hailing service, except that it is more like a bus with many passengers instead of one, and the distance traveled is limited. In other words, ride pooling is a mobility service that flexibly changes routes according to passengers' boarding points and destinations within an area.
Companies that provide ride pooling services in Europe include Moia, a mobility service provider from Volkswagen, and VIA, a startup from Israel. In Korea, Hyundai Motor carried out a pilot program of the ride pulling service ‘Shucle’ in February last year, and has been providing official services in Eunpyeong-gu from March this year and Residential District 1 in Sejong City from April. The distinctive feature of the shackle service is that it incorporates real-time optimal route creation technology (Dynamic Routing Engine) using AI technology. AI collects routes between passengers and determines the optimal route to drive. Because it moves a large number of passengers at the same time, it is highly economical and provides efficient transportation services. In addition, the camera inside the vehicle recognizes the shape of the occupant's head to determine whether they are seated or not, and displays the remaining seat status in the user's application. The system uses AI vision technology to provide convenience, such as knowing the number of seats in the vehicle in advance and making a reservation for passengers on the Shucle.
How will mobility services change in the future? Perhaps in connection with autonomous driving technology, a more advanced form of mobility service will be provided. Since autonomous vehicles do not require driver intervention, not only will service costs be reduced, but also time and place restrictions will be reduced, making it easier for users to call mobility wherever and whenever they want. RethinkX, an American new technology research institute, predicted that car-sharing and car-hailing companies will actively embrace autonomous driving technology, and that most of their customers will use autonomous driving services in the future.
In fact, global automakers and IT companies are steadily investing in mobility services using autonomous driving. Amazon's autonomous driving subsidiary, Zoox, introduced the world's first fully autonomous Robotaxi in December of last year, and is preparing for trial service. Self-driving car developer Waymo is piloting its robot-taxi service, Waymo One, in the United States. Hyundai Motor Group established Motional, a joint venture with U.S. autonomous driving company Aptive, and is conducting tests with the goal of launching a robot taxi in the U.S. Aptiv is currently piloting a robot-taxi service in Las Vegas, Nevada, the USA, and Motional plans to commercialize a robo-taxi based on Hyundai's first platform-based electric vehicle, the IONIQ 5, in 2023 together with US ride-sharing company Lyft.
In Korea, Hyundai Motor Company will start the Mobility-on-Demand multi-seater Roboshuttle pilot service that combines artificial intelligence and autonomous driving technology. Hyundai plans to operate the Roboshuttle pilot program in Sejong Smart City for about two months from August 9 to September 30, 2021. The Roboshuttle obtained a temporary license for autonomous vehicle level 3 operation and used the level 4 level core technology being developed by Hyundai Motor Company. Vehicles using Level 4 technology are characterized by being able to control themselves by recognizing and judging the driving situation, and except for some special circumstances, the emergency driver does not intervene.
More and more people are seeing mobility as a means of transportation that they can call whenever they need it, rather than as private property. It's not just sharing a vehicle; Traveling is recognized as a service by combining technologies such as ICT, artificial intelligence, and autonomous driving. This is supported by the progress of the world's leading global automakers, including the Hyundai Motor Group, which is pursuing change into a smart mobility solution company and investing in ride-sharing services, subscription services, and autonomous driving. As such, mobility is not only changing in form and structure but also evolving into a service centered on user convenience.
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