The car is running again. The data from the six-monthly reports of these days photograph a completely transformed sector. A farewell to the crisis and a welcome to a new world of more substantial margins, liquidity and investments. A sign of the changing car and of an industry that is planning a zero-emission future through new alliances and the strengthening of existing ones.
Everyone behind Tesla? Not really but almost. In fact, Elon Musk’s Californian house managed to obtain the first truly great result: placing its Model Y at the top of European sales, thus overturning the hierarchies of the automotive world. Another unequivocal sign that everything can change, even in a world like the automotive one made up (until now) of unassailable certainties. On the other hand, a Japanese had said it in the early 2000s. Not just anyone but Fujio Cho, the head of Toyota, the largest manufacturer in the world: “The car must change or it will not survive the twenty-first century”.
Right, but many are wondering who will pay for these big changes. Also because now that we are at the center of that great revolution we discover that the price is very high. And above all that it is the motorists who pay for it. A recent study carried out by Autoscout24 has calculated that in the last 20 years the average price of the ten best-selling cars in Italy has doubled, going from 10,500 to 21,040 euros. The same, of course, cannot be said for family incomes. So, the car is becoming a luxury item. Or at least not within everyone’s reach. When Henry Ford discovered back in 1913 that the cars he produced couldn’t even afford his employees, he understood that he had to do (or invent) something to reverse the situation. He succeeded with the assembly line and the industry took off.
Today we need the same. Will Musk do it? Him or others, the important thing is that they make themselves heard. In the meantime, have a good summer.