We participated in the City Car Summit 2017 in Berlin a few weeks ago, and we got to meet some of the industry experts. As you may have guessed, we learned a lot from the 2 days that we spent with them there. Here, we’ve summarized our biggest takeaways from the summit.
Concepts from City Car Summit 2017
The place of the car in tomorrow’s intelligent urban mobility by florian lennert
This talk by Florian Lennert, Director of Intelligent City, Innovation Centre for Mobility and Societal Change, opened the conference and was geared towards:
- Understanding the complex, evolving needs and behaviours of urban transport users around the world
- The contributions of multi-modal, mobility-on-demand solutions, alternative energy and behavioural change towards helping decarbonise mobility and enabling socially and economically healthy cities
Florian prefaced his talk by telling the audience he doesn’t actually know much about the cars themselves. Approaching the topic from a system’s perspective, Florian tries to understand new patterns of mobility. Digitalization leads to the future of urban mobility, but don’t lead to a physical result in the infrastructure of cities. Cities have fundamentally always been shaped by the need to move goods and people, which has allowed us to transform into industrialized cities. In his talk, Florian helps us to understand the unique challenges of different cities in reaching what will be the future of mobility.
Listen to Florian’s talk below.
The effects of autonomous cars on urban transport – a comprehensive view By gunnar landfester
This talk by Gunnar Landfester of Dornier Consulting International GmbH discusses the study conducted by Dornier Consulting on how autonomous cars can shape the future of transportation.
He presented insights from this study, including:
- 5G is just an essential requirement to allow for autonomous driving
- The autonomous vehicle will be very difficult to maintain; the manufacturer will be responsible for maintaining the vehicle
- Personalization is important, both when it comes to the arrangement of the seats and the interface of the technology
- Passive vehicle safety may lose relevance
- The cars may be lighter and more efficient
- Trunk space may not be that important anymore; the trips that you really need trunk space for are limited
- Insurance rates for autonomous vehicles may go down
Listen to Gunnar’s talk below.
Urban mobility the smart way by daniela snyders
This talk by Daniela Snyders of Daimler AG discusses the changing needs and expectations of urban mobility consumers (both owners and renters), urban-centric vehicle design and packaging, and what we can learn from the success of the Smart as a carsharing vehicle.
Daniela presented ideas such as:
- Being “for” something, which gives you the attitude of a pioneer and endless optimism
- The history of Smart started as a pioneer; Mercedes-Benz came up with the concept in the 1970s
- Almost 20 years old, Smart has become an urban icon today, being known as the best and most efficient city car
Listen to Daniela’s talk below.
Are you interested in learning more about the City Car Summit? Contact us here to find out more.
