It seems that long-planned technological innovations, upsets in the market share hierarchy, and new strategic expansions in the automotive sector and more will all begin to make themselves apparent from this year onwards.
Toyota has already surpassed Ford in the US, snatching the number two position from the American auto manufacturer by a hair. Although GM did not lose its leading number on top yet, the company failed to reflect any of its recent global success in the US.
More interesting changes have also been noticed or predictably estimated for the sector in 2020, and focus on a few key ones should make it easier to identify even bigger changes coming up soon.
Automation Will See Large Scale Implementation
There are five levels of active automation in the autonomous vehicle segment, with Level 5 or fully autonomous vehicles still only being a concept at the moment. In fact, even Level 4 automated vehicles are probably not going to see a public release anytime before 2025 – 2030.
On the other hand, what we are more likely to see this year is a much wider adoption and implementation of Level 1 – 3 autonomous features across multiple price brackets.
Highly effective and convenient automation features such as emergency automatic braking and assistive AI were previously exclusive to the pricier segments. These features are now going to start making their way in lower-priced segments as well in 2020.
We Can Shop for Cars Online in 2020
Booking cars online is a fairly convenient process to save time and effort, but BelowInvoice has now made it possible for customers to actually buy a luxury car online and get it delivered to their address of choice.
The ability to shop for cars online is expected to boost revenues in US car sales significantly and add a massive new industry to eCommerce. As of now, the luxury cars are the prime target here, but down the line, cars from various other segments can also be offered as an online purchase by major dealers.
Affordable Cars and Developing Nations
In developing regions such as China and India, car sales have gone through the roof in the last three years. This demand is going to grow further in emerging markets this year, prompting manufacturers from the US, Germany, and Japan to invest more in sub-compact and compact cars. Although concerns have been expressed in regard to the inferior quality of low-end models being supplied to the developing economies, it makes sense from a business perspective, given that the drop n quality is a strategic move to match the buying power of a specific region.
2020 is going to put the automotive industry into a whole new gear for rapid changes in multiple segments. Nevertheless, seeing that a large portion of those changes are consumer-centric in nature, it bodes well for the industry and its customers as a whole. More trends and evolutionary steps might become more obvious down the line, as the year is still in its nascency at best.