Shift Magazine - Issue 1 2018 - 16

TRENDS, continued from p. 7
is still a guessing game, one that takes constant monitoring.
In July 2017, Pon Holdings, a Dutch transportation and mobility company and luxury
brand distributor in the Netherlands, invested
in IndiGO Auto Group, which has luxury dealerships in Houston, St. Louis and Rancho Mirage and Palm Springs, Calif.
Pon is trying to figure out how the automotive business is transforming into the mobility business, IndiGO CEO Todd Blue said. Pon
wants to give its IndiGO dealerships enough
capital to support the transformation to mobility providers, he said.
But that means IndiGO's leadership team
has at least weekly conversations with Pon
to discuss their vision for the future.
"If you're not talking about it weekly, this is
going to pass you by," Blue said. But ensuring
that new ideas are lasting also takes capital,
he added.
A sure way to tell if companies are planning for the future? Adequate funding,
Blue said.

"It cannot be a smoke and mirrors company," he said. "It has to be a business model
that's profitable."

FAILED PILOT

Through Ford Credit Link, the pilot at three
Austin, Texas, dealerships let three to six customers sharing a lease schedule their driving
time and divide payments any way they liked.
Still, participation in the program suffered
as consumers struggled to find people to
share a lease with and feared joint liability.
The program started in March 2016 and Ford
Credit closed it by December.
Three months into the program, no one
had signed up. One of the pilot dealers said
his staff had no reason to suggest the program to customers; shoppers came to the
dealership because they wanted to buy
their own car. Another pilot dealer had faith
that with more marketing, customers would
show interest. In June, Ford Credit launched
digital billboards in Austin to increase awareness, but it didn't work.
At the time Ford Credit Link launched, Ford
Credit had a number of experiments in place,

said spokeswoman Margaret Mellott.
"We knew some would work and some
wouldn't," she said. Since the pilot, Ford Credit has zeroed in on other areas that hold more
promise, such as Canvas, a subscription service run by Ford Credit for used vehicles, Mellott said.
Despite the failure of Ford Credit Link,
auto companies should keep experimenting
in order to understand what it takes to support on-demand mobility, said Stillion. It's
vital that automotive companies experiment
with products or services that could become
trends, he said.
"I suspect you're going to see OEMs arcing toward that, as well as the Enterprise
and Hertz companies of the world, extending
beyond the typical business trend," he said.
"How do they accommodate people's desire
to have access to a car for a week or two or
months on end?"
Trend awareness and analysis can help
automotive companies to prepare for a
somewhat uncertain future, Connelly said.
"You look at trends and say, 'This one could go
this way or that way. How ready are we?' "

COME PONDER THE FUTURE WITH

'FUTURISMO'

n this day and age, you can't have a forward-thinking publication without having a
forward-thinking podcast to go with it.
Luckily, we here at Shift have spent the
past two years working on our "Futurismo"
podcast, which just began its third season.
" 'Futurismo' is a chance to break out of

shift * may 2018

the daily news cycle and really grapple with
some of the serious, and stupid, questions
we have about the industry going forward,"
said Shiraz Ahmed, our podcast guru.
In past seasons, we talked to industry
leaders about what tomorrow's transportation might look like and tried to tie it back to

the present. In Season 3, we're on the ground
with carmakers, suppliers and startups that
are shaping this transformation.
"Everything's becoming more real now,
and that's exciting," Ahmed said.
Check out the most recent "Futurismo"
episode at autonews.com/podcast.

http://www.autonews.com/podcast

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Shift Magazine - Issue 1 2018