Hyundai has established Project IONIQ Lab in Korea that sets out to explore future mobility solutions through innovation, research and academic projects.
The Project IONIQ lab explores four key areas: freedom to use mobility whenever and wherever; freedom to connect to everyday life while on the move; freedom from accidents and inconveniences; and freedom from environmental pollution and energy exhaustion.
The Project IONIQ Lab is led by Dr. Soon Jong Lee, Professor of Seoul National University and Head of Korea Future Design & Research Institute, who will be supported by 10 researchers and 10 consultant experts.
The group has issued its first collective output, identifying 12 future ‘megatrends’ that are likely to affect the car industry in 2030.
Below are the 12 megatrends that will shape the world of 2030:
1. Hyper-connected Society
Technological evolution in the fields of Cloud Computing and Big Data Analysis, together with Network technology for which IoT is one of the representing technologies, are forecasted to increase data transmission speed by an enormous ratio. This will result in a shift into a “Hyper-connected society”, a time when people get/are connected to things and the society on a real-time basis. Mobility is expected to become a focal point in the “Hyper-connected society” with the influence of ICT innovation that is being actively applied to the automotive industry. Therefore, with entering the V2X generation/time, it is becoming more and more important to deeply examine/analyze what kinds of information and resources mobility will be exchanging with people and infra.
2. Hyper-aging Society
In 2030, most of developed countries are expected to be hyper-aging society of which ratio of 65 years old or older is 21% or more due to low birth rate and a rapidly aging population. Under this circumstance, strategy to target the baby boom generation will be increasingly important as they will become majority of the market.
Accordingly, future mobility is expected to cope with primary value of the elderly such as health, healing, communication, etc. Especially new type of mobility such as wearable robot will be introduced in the market as elder people need to maintain their own activity while they will be regarded as a core target in providing in-car services or diverse auto-related services such as car-sharing, ride-hailing, etc.
3. Eco-ism
Needs for alternative energy is increasing due to worldwide and governmental initiative to sort out environmental issues such as global warming, climate change, fossil fuel depletion, etc. Most of the countries will impose stricter environmental regulation and it will lead to more construction for infrastructure driven by government and technical progress in utilizing alternative energy, increasing energy efficiency, etc.
Following this trend, various mobility products that only consume eco-friendly energy or has low power or energy consumption will be in the market requiring sufficient infrastructure to support this. Manufactures or transportation providers are expected to deal with this by developing eco-technologies to meet the relevant regulations.
4. Multi-Layered Mash-up
Compared to conventional industrial convergence, ‘Multi-Layered Mash-up’ leads to merge of value chains from several different industries. And then each unit of value chain of any industry will be improved further by taking advantage of several areas such as technology, culture, science, art and etc. It becomes increasingly possible due to advance in MR(mixed reality) and ICT technology which lessens limitation in time and space and tackles barriers among industries.
In auto industry, mobility’s role as a space is going to expand offering seamless user experience as mobility will be less limited too. In addition, it will be possible to search new business opportunities by collaborating with various industries and areas.
5. Context-Awareness based Individualization
Context cognition technology is able to provide customized information making use of biological and emotional signal of users and the meaning of spaces to users without users’ being aware of the processing. It is far beyond the current stage which depends on the information that users input and will be able to design and propose personal life-style of the future.
With this progressive contextual curation based on AI technology, hyper-individualized mobility which offers various in-car services that reacts to personal condition and emotional states in real-time by will be in the market.
6. High Concept Society
High concepts relates to identifying patterns and opportunities, appreciating artistic and emotional beauty, and combining what appears to be unrelated ideas into strong innovative actionable ideas. As manufacturing capability is standardized due to disruptive manufacturing revolution such as open source, 3D printing technology, cloud sourcing and etc., creativity by converging stories and ideas that are appealing in emotional ways will be crucial. And capabilities indigenous to humans which is not replaceable by AI will be spotlighted and even more developed.
This trend will make companies fragile to produce creativity collapse as it lowers barriers of entry of conventional industries. Consequently open-sourced mobility manufacturing system based on convergence between technology and art, aesthetics, etc will enable consumers to realize their own ideas and creativity leading private-manufacturing market to a rise.
7. Decentralization of Power
The boundaries typically associated with global, local, mainstream, and alternative cultures are starting to blur as network technologies become more open and inclusive. This blurring also facilitates an emergent period for various minority groups, allowing their normally overshadowed concerns to come to the spotlight.
In addition, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, characterized by technological convergence and the coalescence of the physical and virtual realms, will only accelerate this trend of diversification. The rising of various minority groups will upset the global status quo perpetuated by various governments, corporations, and key technologies and result in an intensified and expedited competition for leadership. Once a leader emerges for each link in the new value chain, convergence and cooperation will be the core values that guide the following industrial age.
8. Anxiety and Chaos
Societal anxiety and chaos are being driven by unrelenting technological evolution, causing such as cyber terrorism/crime, class polarization, techno-stress, and generational conflict to sharply increase. In addition, advancements in AI are threatening to markedly increase competition across the entirety of human society.
In light of these pressures, consumers will demand spaces and experiences that empathize and alleviate their anxieties. Mobility as a healing medium will become more important, no longer will it be simply a means of transport; it’s spacial value will drastically increase and as a result there must be in-depth research and analysis into utilizing mobility interior spaces more effectively, according to user needs.
9. Sharing Society
Advances in networking technologies have reduced the cost of sharing, lowering the bar for a “sharing economy” and accelerating it’s adoption. This new sharing economy, valuing economic rationality rather than social status, has started to enter the mainstream; goods are valued on their stories, experiences, and other intangible values in this new shared society.
Therefore, it is predicted that future mobility, based on efficiency and economic viability, will appeal to this new shared economy by developing and implementing on-demand services or platforms that maximize the user’s mobility experiences. A mutually beneficial sharing foundation that is capable of advancing common interest must be laid
10. Co-Evolution
As AI and robotics developments begin to supplant human labor and develop emotive capabilities, humans to will be able to exchange thoughts and emotions with AI, resulting in convergence. While future robots may increase convenience for human beings, it may offset that by tipping cost efficiency against human labor on an unprecedented scale. Therefore, if humans are to find value in this new labor hierarchy, there must be interaction and mutual cooperation with AI to bring about result and further development.
In terms of mobility, AI will mean perfect understanding between vehicle and machine, resulting in services that result in emotional bonding. Autonomous vehicle systems will also hard-override human errors in ability or judgement, and mobility as a whole will drastically reinvent its own value systems. In addition, it has become imperative to establish ethical rules for future mobility systems in order to assure safety, efficiency, and control.
11. Mega-Urbanization
The UN predicts that by 2030, approximately 70% of the world population, 4.9 billion people, will be living in urban areas. It is expected that this rise of megacities will have major effects on urbanite mobility and housing patterns. Having tens of millions of people residing in increasingly denser areas raises issues concerning energy shortages, traffic congestion, pollution, further polarization, and a variety of others. It follows that people’s needs, preferences, and methods of transport will all change in accordance, drastically changing every aspect of public transportation, including hardware, software, and the services themselves.
12. Neo Frontierism
In order to alleviate problems that come with overcrowding, new concepts driven by the advancement of drone technology will open the skies to development. The final frontier of Earth, the oceans and subterranean areas will also see a renewed period of pioneering. While humans extend their influences in the air, underwater, space, and the Earth itself, various industries such as energy, construction, IT, and mobility will innovate heavily in stride. The expansion of humanity’s physical domain presents a vast opportunity for the mobility industry to diversify and expand into.
