Danish automotive entrepreneur Henrik Fisker says the car is no longer our ticket to freedom. It has been overtake by the cell phone for that distinction.
“If you ask somebody, ‘Would you rather be without your car for a week or without your phone?’ 100 percent of those people would say, ‘Without the car, because I can call a car with my phone’,” the CEO of electric-car manufacturer Fisker told me.
Therefore, he says automakers have to decide whether they will be part of a “dwindling market” or accelerate their push to become mobility providers so that they can continue to play an essential role in moving people.
Fisker, however, says the car will still exist long into the future.
“I don’t foresee these doomsday scenarios where nobody owns a car. We may have a small community in Silicon Valley where nobody owns a car, but for the rest of the world it will be different,” he said.
When people have a family and move to the suburbs and need to drive their kids to soccer practice, they will still own cars, Fisker said, adding that he still expects the car to remain a status symbol for the wealthy.
“What’s going to change,” Fisker said, “is that you won’t need a boring car that just provides transportation.”
Why the car is no longer the ticket to freedom
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Henrik Fisker says that people would rather be without their car for their week than they phone because they can call a car with their phone.
