On March 21, MTA Queensland held the third edition of the Carmageddon symposium – a one-day forum that seeks to highlight the disruption facing the automotive industry, the new technology on the horizon and already making an impact, and what a future mobility system might look like and how we get there.

This year’s edition of Carmageddon had the theme of New World Mobility and brought together industry leaders, start-up businesses and academics to discuss these issues. More than 100 attendees attended the event, including guests from government departments, the Queensland Police Service, Ipswich and Redland City Councils, Telstra, RACQ, QUT, Deloitte, CSIRO, the Australian Electric Vehicle Council and the University of Queensland.

The presentations were illuminating, and for those curious to see how technology is already making an impact on the industry, there was the added bonus in the presence of several electric and alternative fuel vehicles that had been brought together for the event. Those vehicles included a Tesla Model S and X, a Hyundai Ioniq Electric and hydrogen fuel cell-powered Nexo, a Jaguar I-Pace, and, from Renault, a Zoe and Kangoo ZE. Of special interest was the Cargo delivery van from ACE EV Group – a smart-looking electric vehicle assembled in Australia.

Opening Carmageddon this year was the Hon Karen Andrews MP, Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, and the Minister set the tone for the event as she commented on the ever-increasing speed of change and the importance for Australia to keep pace with the rapid advances being made internationally.

“The quest for a more efficient and effective means of transport continues,” said the Minister. “Electric and hybrid vehicles will increasingly become a regular feature of the landscape, but all the indications are that we should expect more as technological disruption continues to hold sway.

“As a nation, we cannot afford to watch from the sidelines as this important transformation unfolds – we have to be active participants.

“The future of Australia’s automotive sector lies in embracing new technology, it lies in linking into global value chains and developing high value-added clients and services, be they aftermarket manufacturing, engineering and design, servicing and smash repairs or sales and aftersales. The future also lies in developing a workforce relevant to an era of rapid technological disruption and transformation. I look forward to continuing to work with you and others in the sector to make sure you’re positioned to make the most of the emerging opportunities.”

Following the Minister’s address, Dr Brett Dale, CEO of MTA Queensland presented his keynote address and talked about the major technologies driving industry change, the pace of that change, the potential value of it to society, and the challenges and opportunities for industry, government and consumers.

He reminded the audience that the automotive industry had a vital part to play not only as a driver of the economy but to the wellbeing of the wider community.

“We believe the auto industry and all things mobility underpin and enable every other industry as well as the way we live in society,” he said.

“We know that connected, electrification and shared services will be the future of mobility and this change will be as big as the transition from horses to cars. Indeed, we are at dawn of a new era, the only question is when. Many are talking 2030, I am saying be ready by 2022 at the latest. We have been slow to appreciate the change that is coming, but the time is now.”

The opportunities that new technology and innovation presents was a thread that ran through all the presentations delivered at Carmageddon.

A panel discussion involving Cat Matson, Brisbane’s Chief Digital Officer; Dr Brett Dale; Dr Kellie Nuttall, Partner at Deloitte whose areas of expertise include the future of transport, data, AI and automation; and Professor Michael Milford of the QUT Science and Engineering Faculty explored the ideas of mobility systems and smart cities.

A concept that is seen as a central part of future mobility, smart cities are, agreed the panel, possible only through the adoption of new technology and the use of information and data to meet the aim of improving a society’s infrastructure and services.

Part of that new technological advancement and, by extension, an important part of smart cities, will be electric vehicles (EV).

EVs are, of course, already a major disruptor to the traditional automotive industry. Every sizeable vehicle manufacturer has made a hefty bet on their success and invested in their development, and there is little doubt that EVs will have a tremendous impact in Australia, as they already are doing in other nations.

However, for EVs to truly be successful and play a pivotal in future mobility, their owners must have the ability to recharge them quickly and conveniently. And it is in charging systems that Australia can claim some leadership, with Brisbane-based company Tritium a world leader in the technology.

In his presentation, Dr Paul Sernia, Chief Product Officer and founder of Tritium, considered the status of the charging industry and where that technology is heading. Given the expected massive growth in EVs and other electrification projects, the opportunities for business are tremendous.

Dr Sernia highlighted some trends in this area, including that of unlocking the potential of an EV as an energy asset and the opportunities for businesses, especially those that run fleets of vehicles, to have considerable control over their costs should they invest in managing their own charging systems.

He also considered future refueling stations and the further opportunities that lie there. With EVs being quiet and emissions free, those locations could, he suggested, become ‘destinations’ – locations where it is not just about refueling but also retail and other services – and where vehicles could actually be brought into the environment.

In his presentation, Professor Michael Milford from QUT, who researches the use of artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles, talked about the potential of autonomous vehicles, their continuing development, and, interestingly, the evolving understanding around when and in what form they are likely to appear.

The public’s growing knowledge of the technology, as well as that of researchers and manufacturers was, he said, a factor in this evolving thinking.

Safety is one of the main benefits touted for self-driving cars, but the ability to successfully develop a fully autonomous vehicle capable of carrying passengers in absolute safety was, he said, a difficult problem to solve. Instead, he suggested, it could be that the first autonomous solutions will be seen in the delivery sector rather than personal transportation – an avenue some companies are exploring.

“Removing the human from the vehicle may speed up their development,” he said. “One of the advantages of this is it makes the problem much simpler. If you are in an accident situation and you have to decide what you want to do, then you just write-off the vehicle – you can crash the vehicle into a tree or a wall because there are no people in it. That really simplifies the problem and means they could get to a fully deployable solution sooner than these robot taxis.

“There are extreme optimists and extreme pessimists and the reality is probably going to be somewhere in the middle . . . just because a lot of this is hype doesn’t mean that the core technologies behind it aren’t going to happen and aren’t going to transform society, Hopefully in a positive way.”

INVESTING IN THE FUTURE

One presentation that was of particular interest was that given by Eden Spencer, CEO of Block2, a start-up company with a potentially game-changing application for automotive businesses.

In a nutshell, the company’s web-based platform – which is built upon and utilises the secure blockchain transaction system – enables businesses to be more productive and profitable through the ‘sharing’ of assets. Those assets can be just about anything – from tools to hoists, vehicles to workshop space, even, and this is, perhaps, the feature of the platform with the most intriguing potential for industry and society in the long term – employees.

Imagine a workshop – let’s call it Workshop One – that is running under capacity. With a light work week scheduled, one of its three hoists will be empty for at least a day and one technician will be at something of a loose end. Not a happy scenario for any business owner.

Not far away, however, is another workshop – let’s call it Workshop Two – that is running at full capacity and has more customers knocking on the door.

Now imagine that Workshop Two doesn’t have to keep those extra customers waiting, or turn them away, because, through the Block2 platform, it can arrange to engage the hoist and the technician from Workshop One to deliver the required service to its customers.

Here’s another scenario: Workshop Two has the opportunity to take on extra work and has the space in its shop to deliver it, but is short a technician to carry it out. The answer? It engages the services of the underused technician from Workshop One.

For both businesses, and indeed the technician, it’s a winning outcome. Workshop One has its underused technician back in the mix, the technician is being paid and working, and Workshop Two can service its new customer with ease.

This ‘sharing’ of underused assets – space, tools, technician – is a tremendously simply idea that has huge potential upside for workshops and the wider industry as the challenges of the broader industry evolution take place. It opens up the possibility of collaboration and partnerships between businesses not only in the sharing of resources but in the purchasing of them too. A premium scan tool, customer loan vehicles – just about anything that involves heavy investment – can be bought, and the expense shared and usage scheduled, through the platform.

“Businesses don’t need to own resources, they only need access to the capability that these resources provide, and that’s how Block2 was born,” said Mr Spencer. “The platform gives businesses the ability to share underutilised resources with industry-aligned participants in controlled conditions without losing them.

“In turn, they support businesses that do not have these resources but still require access to the capabilities they provide. We bring together two parties, with a common goal, to create a win-win environment.

“The platform reduces the weight of pressure on small businesses because we eliminate the pressure of ownership, we balance out skill and labour shortages and reduce the challenges around seasonality and variable business conditions.

“And Block 2 allows businesses to collaborate even more through a fractional-ownership model, where multiple businesses can share the cost of essential pool of resources amongst themselves.”
As the expected disruptions to the industry start to bite, there’s plenty of potential in the Block2 platform to help businesses become more efficient and productive, and that potential was enough for MTA Queensland to become one of the start-up company’s early investors.

It is, said Dr Brett Dale, an example of technology that will open some tremendous opportunities in a landscape full of challenges.

“I often talk about the changes technology is having on industry and how we are going to have fluctuating markets,” said Dr Dale. “Electric vehicles are a prime example of technology that will have that effect.

“On their own, EVs will impact workshops because their servicing requirements are about 10 per cent that of existing vehicles. So, there will be a time when a small workshop, that might have a couple of tradespeople and apprentices, won’t have the workload it has now. However, rather than lay off staff, those employees become a resource that business can ‘trade’ and outsource to another workshop.

“MTA Queensland represents business. and business is concerned about the lack of qualified and skilled people in industry. This offers a way of taking advantage of the capacity that is currently in industry.”

While it may seem odd at first to talk of staff as resources that can be traded, the Block2 platform does extend opportunities to employees too – and not just because it allows for them to be working and earning if and when their own employer’s business is experiencing a slow period.

The transparency built into the platform – which allows businesses to see the resources of others and the availability of them – means the experience, skills and performance of employees or independent contractors will be visible. This in turn means that, as the system matures, those talented technicians will find themselves in high demand. That demand could, and indeed should, lead to higher earnings for them.

“Everyone wants to be busy, to be challenged and to be valued for their work, and the system allows for just that,” said James Orr, MTA Queensland’s Chief Technology Innovation Officer. “We will be able to recognise those people who are highly talented and highly skilled, and if those skills are in demand, why shouldn’t they be paid more?

“In the industry currently, individual businesses have visibility over the talent and performance of their own staff, but only their own staff. The Block2 platform changes that, allowing the wider industry to see that talent too.”

While the Block2 platform was conceived as a business-to-business (B2B) platform, it is also being developed to include a business-to-consumer (B2C) gateway. That, said Dr Dale, is a natural extension of the concept and will allow consumers to access workshop services directly through an online portal.

“A consumer-facing application helps to drive the B2B, and the scope there is unlimited. We can offer vehicle servicing, for example,” he said. “A customer can come onto the platform to book their car in for a service. That request will go on to a shop that can decide to take on that work or not, depending on their capacity to do so. That business can use the B2B end of the system to look at bringing in resources, should they require them, to their workshop to be able to do that job.”

As with many other such consumer platforms, part of the path to success will be in the ratings awarded to a business. In the case of the Block2 platform, the assertion is that any rating there will be a powerful tool based on more than just that most obvious of metrics – the price – and take into account a variety of business indicators.

“We know that customer experience overrides something as simple as price,” said Mr Orr. “While price may be important, the real rating comes from the result of the work, the quality of the service, the relationships built. If we think about millennials for example – those people in their 20s and younger – then we can see that quality counts. Many of them own a $2000 iPhone or an $1800 Samsung Galaxy phone and that shows they are willing to pay for a good product. Consumers are savvy and price is not the only factor.”

The Block2 platform offers one more, very important opportunity for industry, and that is data-driven insight.

For MTA Queensland, the state’s peak industry body, understanding the health of the industry and working to keep it robust has been part of its mission since it was established in 1929.

The Block2 platform offers a way to access that information, with the data generated through the platform keeping the Association, individual businesses and, by extension, the industry generally, focused on doing what works and changing what doesn’t.

“All the business insight and data we gather for a business and its employees will give them the ability to make decisions based on relevant information,” said Dr Dale. “And it will give MTA Queensland the ability to take the pulse of the industry on a day-to-day basis, in real time, and enable us to direct our efforts on the areas that will serve industry best.

“This is a product for industry by industry and, ultimately, this platform will help businesses navigate new and uncertain times. It will enable them to look outside of their business at the wider industry, see how they can collaborate with each other, come together to co-invest in strategic equipment, and give them a competitive advantage.

“The industry is changing and if you can make more money out of your assets, be more productive and gain a greater financial return, you can stay in the game for a lot longer. This platform offers that opportunity.”

THE FUTURE

Having begun in 2017 as a relatively small gathering of researchers and innovators enthusiastically sharing their thoughts and insights into the automotive industry’s future direction, Carmageddon has grown to become an important event on the innovation landscape. It’s future, like that of the industry itself, is an exciting one.

“Carmageddon is progressing just how we thought it might,” said Dr Dale. “It has become increasingly popular to the point where I think we have outgrown our own venue.

“Our aspiration is to make this an annual event that becomes the must-see exhibition for business and motorists about all things mobility.

“Its future is huge and will be used as the platform to continually roll out the latest information on products and services relevant to our industry . . . The information we share is critical to ensure future markets through consumer awareness and trust in the new technology that is coming.”

Source: Motor Trader E-Magazine (April 2019 Edition)

5 Apr 2019