In today’s era, driven by the waves of the digital economy and the sharing economy, how will the automotive industry evolve in the future? November 19–21 in Guangzhou Held 2018 At the International Conference on Intelligent Shared Mobility, experts provided the following answer: The cars of the future will be a deep integration of electrification, intelligence, sharing, and connectivity, and will seamlessly integrate with smart transportation and smart cities.

The greatest innovation in intelligence is autonomous driving technology, which is currently undergoing rapid development. In December 2015, Baidu announced the official establishment of its Autonomous Driving Business Unit and unveiled a well-known timetable: “Commercialization within three years, mass production within five years.” In July 2016, BMW, Intel, and Mobileye—experts in the field of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS)—jointly announced a collaboration to develop self-driving cars. In July 2017, SoftBank, General Motors, and BMW invested a total of $159 million in the autonomous driving startup Nauto. According to expert forecasts By 2035, the market size for autonomous vehicles will reach as much as 800 billion U.S. dollars. By 2050, the scale of economic activities related to autonomous vehicles will grow to 7 trillion U.S. dollars, with ride-hailing services provided by autonomous vehicles accounting for approximately 4 trillion U.S. dollars and express delivery and commercial logistics services provided by autonomous vehicles reaching about 3 trillion U.S. dollars.

“Car sharing” It’s not a new concept, Before 2016, the industry referred to this model as “time-sharing leasing.” Time-sharing leasing involves multiple people sharing a single vehicle—drivers have only the right to use the vehicle, not ownership. Today, the term “car-sharing” is actually more accurate. Time-sharing rental at It first entered the Chinese market in 2010. By early 2013, the number of start-up companies in this sector had grown significantly. By the end of 2014, the number of cars used for time-sharing rental across the country had exceeded 8,000. By 2016, the time-sharing rental business began to accelerate rapidly, closely linked to a sharp increase in automobile production and the rising popularity of the “sharing” concept. At the end of 2016, there were only two or three dozen shared-car platforms nationwide; today, that number has surged to over a hundred. From the perspective of the capital markets, since the end of 2016, the A-share market has already experienced two rounds of speculation on stocks related to shared cars. Stocks of companies such as Haima Automobile, Lifan Shares, and Pangda Group have soared, and the concept of new-energy shared cars has consistently attracted strong investor interest. Moreover, various samples of shared cars have appeared on streets in many Chinese cities, giving rise to a large number of start-ups in the car-sharing sector. In Shanghai, "Global Car Sharing," a joint venture between SAIC Motor and EVCARD, has already put 6,500 vehicles into operation. In Guangzhou, operators like "Youche," EVCARD, and Jiabei are already active in the shared-car market. In Shenzhen, more than 1,000 time-sharing rental vehicles from four companies—BYD, ZTE, Chepu Intelligent, and Liancheng Sharing—are bustling on the streets every day. In Chongqing, "Car2go by Daimler," a subsidiary of Daimler Group, has gradually deployed over 600 Mercedes-Benz smart cars in the city’s central districts...

According to experts, by... By 2030, the proportion of individuals using shared cars could reach over 45%. By 2030, the market value of ride-sharing in the U.S., Europe, and China will total US$1.5 trillion, with an average annual compound growth rate (2017–2030) of approximately 24%. Of this, China’s ride-sharing market will be worth US$564 billion, growing at an average annual rate of 32%.

As artificial intelligence, big data, and autonomous driving technologies continue to advance, autonomous driving technologies and products are evolving at an unprecedented pace. It seems that the future—where drivers are no longer needed—is not far off. Or perhaps, as... With the development of the “sharing economy,” do we really no longer need to buy cars?