[05:15, 19/09/2023] Oluwaseun Onasanya: The planet is becoming more urban. By 2030, more than five billion people about 60 percent of the world population will live in cities.

We are also becoming more mobile and more connected. New technologies and business models are pushing aside the privately-owned automobile and other less efficient modes of transportation.

Whether from autonomous vehicles, the electrification of transportation, shared networks of cars, scooters and bicycles, or the advent of 5G wireless, the world of mobility is changing almost daily.

Nowhere will that transformation be felt more acutely in the coming decades than in the worlds major cities where increased urban density and congestion make the tasks of creating and maintaining urban transport systems ever more comple [05:16, 19/09/2023] Oluwaseun Onasanya: The planet is becoming more urban. By 2030, more than five billion people about 60 percent of the world population will live in cities.

We are also becoming more mobile and more connected. New technologies and business models are pushing aside the privately-owned automobile and other less efficient modes of transportation.

Whether from autonomous vehicles, the electrification of transportation, shared networks of cars, scooters and bicycles, or the advent of 5G wireless, the world of mobility is changing almost daily.

Nowhere will that transformation be felt more acutely in the coming decades than in the worlds major cities where increased urban density and congestion make the tasks of creating and maintaining urban transport systems ever more complex.

This is why developing and improving urban mobility is a top priority of cities around the globe. If a city cannot move its people, goods and data efficiently, it is difficult to see how it thrives.

Three broad technological trends will be primarily responsible for reshaping urban mobility in every city digitization, automation and electrification. The sharing (or collaborative) economy, a fourth trend, has led to new business models in which the mobility service provided is more important than its ownership

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SEAT, S.A. is a Spanish automobile manufacturer with its head office in Martorell (near Barcelona), Spain. The firm has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Volkswagen Group since 1986.

The firm is strategically repositioning itself from a vehicle manufacturer to a provider of shared mobility services (i.e. where users pay for transportation only when they need it, rather than owning a personal vehicle that is not used most of the time), especially in increasingly crowded urban areas. As stated by Luca De Meo, the firms Chairman:

We are convinced that vehicles will become the second largest connected platform after the mobile phone and we will have the chance to integrate them into a rich ecosystem. This transformation forces us to innovate and move beyond the scope of being just a carmaker, stretching our value chain towards new mobility services, platforms and data businesses.

As part of this repositioning, SEAT has identified compact urban mobility (i.e. short commutes less than 10 kilometres within the city environment, using a small vehicle) as a core area for strategic development.

The firm unveiled its Minim concept vehicle at the 2019 Mobile World Congress to demonstrate SEATs vision of the compact urban mobility of tomorrow.

Integrating the fields of electrification, connectivity and shared mobility the Minim is a 2-passenger quadricycle primarily intended for business-to-consumer free-floating carsharing providers* that has been designed to:

have a considerably smaller ecological footprint (3.1 square metres) than a normal car (7.2 square metres) while providing safe, agile travel and easy parking release zero emissions due to its all-electric powertrain reduce the operating costs of carsharing providers by 50%, as the integrated battery-swap system means the vehicle rarely needs to be taken to a recharging point provide a convenient and smooth digital user experience for users based on hyperconnectivity with built-in 5-G technology allow the vehicle in the future and subject to further development of autonomous technologies - to pick up the user when requested, thereby solving one of the main carsharing user pain points.

Delayed due to the global pandemic and global semiconductor chip shortage, the Minim will now enter into production in February 2024, leaving the firm with only 12 months to decide which city from across the globe will be most attractive for the product launch.

SEATs international strategy team have already undertaken some initial desktop research and have identified London (UK) and Singapore as potentially attractive markets for the product launch of the Minim.

As an external consultant, you have been commissioned by the team to evaluate which of these 2 potential city-level markets is more attractive to launch the Minim vehicle into and to then analyse the more attractive city-level market in greater detail.

* Two of the main types of business-to-consumer car-sharing models are: Round-trip Station-based carsharing the user only has the choice of a round trip, picking the car up at Station A and returning it to Station A when they are finished. Those who plan trips ahead of time or are looking for a car at a specific time would benefit from these services. Free-floating carsharing (e.g. car2go, Gig or DriveNow) the user can see which cars are available within a set operating area on a mobile app and choose the one closest to them. Once the user is finished using the car, they can drop off the car at any location within the set operating area, saving time and avoiding unnecessary trips. Those who are spontaneous and decide last-minute that they need a car would benefit from these services. SEAT intends to sell its Minim vehicle to business-to-consumer free-floating carsharing providers.

NB the differences between car-sharing, ride-sharing and ride-hailing: Car-sharing = I rent a car to drive now and park it when Im finished; someone else will rent the same car later and drive it. Ride-sharing = a customer (rider) shares a vehicle with other riders. It is not personal transportation, as the vehicle is shared with other riders and will make stops to pick up other riders. Ride-hailing = when a rider hails or hires a personal driver to take them exactly where they need to go. The vehicle is not shared with any other riders, nor does it make several stops along a route. The ride is booked and paid for through a smartphone app with a transportation network company (TNC) such as Uber.

QUESTIONS:

1. 5-forces analysis of competition in the carsharing industry in your chosen city