Introduction

It’s time for a change of perspective. For the last three years, Nucleus has focused on the creative collision between automotive, communications and tech. We’ve examined or tried to predict the new products and services and thinking created by that collision. We’ve assumed that they will be disruptive for the established carmakers, but more convenient and relevant for its end users.

But is that really true? It’s time to turn the telescope, and look back at ourselves from the perspective of the populations we seek to serve. To them, automotive and communications and tech aren’t discrete entities. We are all just part of their experience of living and working: especially if they’re young, and especially if they live in a city. 

That experience is being transformed rapidly and utterly by technology. The rate of change is so fast that the world is already a markedly different place to when Nucleus began in 2015. Before Brexit and Trump, we didn’t realize the impact that technology, through social media, would have on age-old political institutions and conventions. So what chance do the old certainties of the car industry have, such as personal ownership, brand loyalty or the appeal of premium? 

If they live in a city, our children are more likely to make their first unaccompanied trips by car in an Uber than in a Mustang they’ve borrowed from their Dad. To them, a car is an extension of their phone. Mobility is more important than the means. And even mobility itself might be less important if the other parts of the bigger picture mean they simply have to move less.

So this year, we’ll try to see that picture too. We’ll try to see how the changes we engineer to mobility will affect individuals and the places they live. But more importantly we’ll try to see how they see us, and how their attitudes and the other forces shaping their lives will change their need for us.