(Bloomberg) -- Mini is planning for a future when traditional vehicle ownership will be optional and its model line will consist of free-floating robo-cars.
The Mini Vision Next 100 electric concept car picks up passengers autonomously, changes color to fit each new driver’s preferences and parks and recharges without human intervention, the automaker said in a presentation Thursday in London. It was a window into parent BMW AG’s soul-searching over the urban car market of the coming decades, showing the company believes drivers won’t be necessary and all vehicles will need built-in adaptability for shared ownership.
“It opens up millions of new customers who would really like to have a premium car but maybe can’t afford one or live in a city where they can’t park one,” Ian Robertson, BMW’s head of sales, told journalists, adding that the wider ground-transport market including buses, taxis and rail is valued at about $10 trillion. “If you can reach new customers, then the scope and the scale of what we are in business with today takes a massive, massive reach forward.”
|Shared-ownership
The shared-ownership model could extend to vehicles from the main BMW brand, Peter Schwarzenbauer, the group executive who oversees Mini, said at a separate briefing.
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