Recently General Motors announced that it planed to produce self-driving cars in the next year as it was developing a new technology related to autonomous cars.
In order to get ahead in the field of autonomous car, General Motors has partnerships with several companies such as Mobileye, to open up the new technology together. Also, it starts a three-year cost-cutting plan to cover the expense in manufacturing and administration.
From my point of view, General Motors holds a lot of opportunities to exploit this new product line. As I mentioned in the second paragraph, it has already found key partners and constructed a reasonable cost structure for its new products. In addition, the autonomous car itself is a marketable product. It has an important value proposition, which is convenience. It provides the chance for disable people to ride in a car alone. Everyone is able to drive a car without any driving skills. Since the price of autonomous car will not be too low or too high, it can target towards large segments of customers, such as middle class, young people, disable people and auto rental companies.
Meanwhile, General Motors faces lots of competitive pressures. Strong competitors like Tesla and Google also have sophisticated plans for their autonomous vehicles. The participation of General Motors gives on edge to the competition of autonomous car.
Since no one solves all the technologic challenges, it is hard to say who can take the lead in the competition. I hope General Motors can be the first in autonomous car competition in the future.
Sources:
- http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34410690
- http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/red-with-envy-gm-shows-off-next-generation-of-chevy-branded-autonomous-en-v-pod-car-in-china/