80 • DECEMBER 2021
disposable transport. You generally
don’t care which badge is attached to
the boot of the taxi that picks you up
and drops you off, after all.
The car driving you is critical to
the electric motoring plans being
made by some of the largest car
makers, not least Volkswagen. The
German giant’s new board member
for sales, marketing and after-sales,
Klaus Zellmer, told me that VW will,
in the future, be more of a transport
provider than a mere seller of cars.
“We have a trend in society where
people, younger people especially,
are less willing to commit to
purchasing a car. Why would they
purchase a car, they ask, and deal
with all the consequences of that—
such as resale value, insurance, tax
and so on—when they can let us take
care of all that?”says Zellmer. “‘You
give me a car and I pay for it when I
need it’—that is the societal trend.
"The new aspect will be
autonomous driving, because once
we have that, then you can do all
sorts of things inside the car. You
can talk with your family, you can
play games, or watch a movie, you
can work, you can even sleep. So we
have to create this environment that
differentiates our car of the future
from other cars, and that gives youTHE ELECTRIC REVOLUTION: WHAT'S NEXT?