Mobility — before, during and after COVID-19

There is no doubt that the ambience around Covid in the last 2 years has caused a slowdown in many business models that have proven to be attractive in the last decade.

Travel restrictions have reduced bookings through AIRBNB by foreign tourists to other countries, but the business model itself seems to have survived by using customers who booked in their own countries unable to travel abroad.

However, almost every company in the mobility business in the past two years has suffered a serious blow, so that even UBER had to save its existence through the delivery option, which is not their primary service.

Тhe fact is that we live in a time when some services will completely disappear and new services will appear that did not exist before.

In 2019, when Getaround bought the French company Drivѕ with an acquisition of more than 400M, we thought that all european markets would change in the use of cars, but that has not happened so far.

Yes, Covid is one of the reasons and the other reason is the conservative European market where many small countries prevent rapid internationalization and make every business model slower and more expensive at the same time.

I have written many times that small countries are doomed to be rich countries, because they are small and have a deficit in certain professions and services and simply the low price can not be a comparative advantage, but only the top products and services that users can get them.

Different generations have always had their own trends and habits, so we had completely different priorities and habits from our parents, but the generations that do not remember life without the Internet and without Google seem to have a completely different approach to their property and location.

It seems very important to which generation of users you will ask the following question:

Are you ready to rent your car to a stranger?

The question still seems strange, even though many of us have cars in our garages for more than a year.

Accenture believes this trend is here to stay, and will have a significant impact on the industry.

And, according to Accenture’s recent research “Unlock the value of mobility services: Turning business models into profits,” the P2P market is expected to grow to US$21bn n by 2030 in China, the US and Germany alone.

The aversion toward public and mass transit due to the COVID-19 pandemic will likely remain for months, possibly even years, but let us be clear: the automotive industry is changing.

People want options, and P2P offers alternative approaches, so it behoves the industry to be supportive.

There are other worrying signs of change on the horizon that will affect car sales. For instance, if a global recession kicks in, people who want to purchase a car might not have the discretionary funds required. \

If people choose not to go back to work in offices, even after the pandemic, they might not feel the need to own a car.

The more the automotive industry recognises these trends and becomes embedded into the new models, the better poised it is to thrive in the new mobility landscape.

It may be several more years than researchers predict, but it is more than certain that car ownership will not be necessary.

P2P, B2B, classic rental or carsharing will be models that will certainly increase their participation in the future.

There will always be a need for owners’ security whether they are individuals or companies, and they will always look for customers they can trust, but it is the job of insurance companies to have to step out of their comfort zone and forget the time when they worked with the same products more than 10 or 20 years.

Today, new needs are dictated by insurance companies that will be able to make an insurance product in a maximum of 60 days, without any delays.

I hope we live in that time!