2012 Annual Report

BETTER WORLD - Blueprint for Mobility

There are about 7 billion people in the world today and about 1 billion vehicles. By 2050, the population is expected to reach 9 billion globally. More people and greater prosperity means that by midcentury, the number of vehicles could increase fourfold.

In decades to come, 75 percent of the world’s population is expected to live in cities, with 50 of those cities projected to have more than 10 million residents. And thus global gridlock – a never-ending traffic jam that wastes time, energy and resources – is a real possibility. Even if the vehicles we make produce zero emissions and draw from renewable energy sources, a traffic jam with clean vehicles is still a traffic jam.

Our new Blueprint for Mobility outlines our near-, mid- and long-term vision for solutions to this changing transportation landscape. It defines the start of our thinking about what transportation will look like in 2025 and beyond, and identifies the technologies, business models and partnerships we need to embrace to help get us there.

Our vision blends smart transportation with intelligent vehicles and transport systems. We see a radically different transportation landscape in which pedestrian, bicycle, private car, commercial and public transportation are all connected in ways that save time, conserve resources, lower emissions and improve safety. We’re looking at how best to optimize a broader transportation ecosystem in which the automobile makes up just one element.

No one company or industry alone will be able to solve future mobility issues, and success will come about only if governments, infrastructure developers and industry work together on a global scale. New business models and partnerships we’re already developing will shift the paradigm of what it means to be an automaker, and this is a challenge we look forward to.