The automotive industry may be at its highest level for years, but digitisation is allowing it to strengthen further. The increasing digitisation and automation of manufacturing is moving processes away from manual labour, resulting in production and cost efficiencies (which is already benefiting suppliers by £2.6bn). Systems which allow for the sharing of real-time data analytics, 3D printing, deployment of ‘cobots’ and ‘machine vision’ which ascertains safety are all disrupting the traditional production lines. The car sharing market is growing rapidly, with a number of concepts hitting our streets. These include Ford’s pay-as-you-go service GoDrive , and cars on demand club, Zipcar, plus several other schemes worldwide which are bound to reach the UK soon. So fast is this idea spreading, PWC predicts that by 2030, one in three kilometres driven ‘could involve sharing concepts’.
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