Move with the times

A senior car executive recently visited monocle’s London HQ and spoke to the team about the shifts reshaping the automotive industry. In passing, they mentioned the average age of a new-car buyer in 2024. In Europe, they said, it’s a staggering 55. With entry-level prices for many of the continent’s top marques hovering at about €40,000, it’s not surprising that the trade in used vehicles is so robust or that many choose to forgo car ownership altogether.

Then our visitor said something else that was nicely surprising. They make cars for men and women who like driving and are not fretting about autonomous vehicles sweeping away their business – far from it. (In a similar meeting almost 10 years ago, another car executive assured us that driverless vehicles would dominate by 2025.) It’s conversations such as these that have shaped this year’s mobility issue. While research into driverless cars, flying taxis and next-gen supersonic aircraft receive bountiful media coverage, they remain sideline issues for the people at the sharp end of the industry. Whether you are running a car brand, an aircraft maker or a bicycle-manufacturing plant, your business is almost certainly being shaped by a far more interesting set of fast-moving trends. Legacy car brands are looking askance at how China is challenging them in every market. Aviation players are grappling with the demands of legislators for cleaner aircraft. And many bicycle brands are wondering how they can come good on their environmental credentials if they are sourcing all of their parts from Taiwan, importing them to Europe for assembly, then shipping their completed bikes back to Asia.

Over the following pages, we’ll look at the triumph of small cars (cheaper, nimbler in congested cities), as well as the automotive brands that have found success with modern people-carriers. We will take you to an air show to find out why alternative fuels have become such a hot topic and explore the consequences for re-engineering a city if you design public transport that elevates your journey. And we will also drop in on Romania’s version of Detroit in its Motor City heyday. In short, we’ll go beyond the usual headlines as we ask, what’s next for mobility?