After the car was invented in 1885, motorization becomes the icon of social advancement. In the second half of the twentieth century, urban planners design the car-friendly city, which is primarily put into practice in sprawling American metropolises, where it remains a reality today: “In the United States, people have made extensive use of the available space and spread out across the country, meaning that the population density is so low that it is difficult to develop public transportation networks,” emphasizes Professor Dirk Heinrichs. He is the head of the “Mobility and Urban Development” research department at Berlin’s DLR Institute of Transport Research. In cities with populations of more than one million, such as Phoenix and Houston, people cover up to 92 percent of the total distance they travel around with city with their own cars. And even outside of the US, the car led to the creation of new residential areas – suburbs around highly populated cities are seen as the ideal place to live, with one or even two cars in the garage for the commute to work. Small towns only survive because their residents remain flexible thanks to owning their own cars.

Prosperity and mobility are closely related. The Energy Information Administration (EIA), which is part of the United States Department of Energy, has documented a nearly linear correlation between per capita GDP and the number of kilometers traveled per capita. In emerging countries, personal mobility is also the basic requirement for participation in society, personal success, and social progress – and the result of increasing economic output. In 2050, when nine billion people inhabit our planet, the need for mobility solutions will increase further, while at the same time, resources will be scarcer and environment protection standards will be more stringent.

The future of mobility will see our commute to work less dependent on inflexible public transportation timetables, since working hours will increasingly free themselves from the chains of the classic “9 to 5” schedule. At the same time, continued urban sprawl is resulting in even longer commutes to work, making it all the more important to use the travel time wisely – in autonomous vehicles, passengers can either relax or work. Growing urbanization is also increasingly shining the spotlight on mobility when it comes to leisure activities. How can people quickly and cleverly get to their favorite climbing wall, mountain bike trail, or lake? Changes in our consumer behavior also call for new mobility concepts, as ZF’s 2016 study on the future entitled “The Last Mile” shows. An increase in online shopping, more deliveries, and ideally, one-hour delivery is all leading to package delivery services having to make multiple deliveries of smaller quantities in increasingly decentralized logistics operations.