KPMG Talks Transport Trends

Share

Moscow – Technological advances in the automobile sector and shifting social trends will change the landscape of transportation and help shape the future of the lubricants industry, an analyst said at a conference here last week.

Speaking at RPIs International Lubricants conference, Anton Vetrov, manager of the Moscow office of KPMGs global strategy group, cited technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning and social trends like increased awareness of environmental issues.

AI, machine learning, increased data transmission speed as well as engine productivity and efficiency, coupled with environmental public concerns, personalized products and services as well as decreased desire to own property, including vehicles, are factors that push this development, Vetrov said.

Autonomous cars, with either internal combustion engines or electric engines, car sharing, autonomous electric aircraft, Maglev high-speed trains and the novel hyper loop ultra-fast transportation will be future drivers in transport development, according to KMPG.

The consultancy forecasts that market penetration of electric vehicles will increase significantly in the next decade.

At this moment, electric vehicles consist of around 2 percent of the overall car population globally, and we expect [this] number to grow to 30 percent by 2030. Autonomous car penetration … will be tremendous as well. We expect auto-pilot-operated vehicles to comprise 25 percent of the total number of cars globally by 2030, up from 0.2 percent in 2019, Vetrov said.

The car sharing market is also set for a big change. In monetary terms, it is only 0.1 percent of the total transportation market today but is expected to increase to 2 percent by 2030, according to KPMG.

Vetrov said there are potential barriers that could impede uptake of electric vehicles, autonomous transport and car sharing. For electric vehicles, these include low battery performance, underdeveloped charging infrastructure and the image of electric vehicles being luxury vehicles. Autonomous transportation must overcome vehicle software hacking, imperfection of the regulatory framework and the safety of autonomous transportation, while barriers to car sharing include striving for full car personalization and the traditional perception of transport as property.

In spite of these obstacles, new social trends will contribute to a dramatic change in the various types of transportation in terms of total volume of trips in the decades to come.

Traditional transport [ICE, human-operated transportation] will go through dramatic change by 2040. By then, it will be overflown [with] autonomous ICE vehicles, electric vehicles and car sharing transportation that will consist of 28 percent, 22 percent and 32 percent respectively, of the total volume of trips. The rest, or 18 percent, will remain traditional transport, Vetrov said.

KPMG, a Netherlands-based consulting firm, predicts that these new trends will have a profound impact on the lubricants industry.

These effects include reduced transportation required for the shipping of lubricants, increased quality requirements of finished products and a reduced share of individuals among consumers, Vetrov said.

Lubricant manufacturers need to respond to industry changes if they want to maintain a competitive position in the market and should take several short-term, mid-term and long-term actions, KPMG found.

In [the] short term, lube producers should diversify [their] product portfolio for use not in ICE and to create box solutions for commercial customers. In the mid-term perspective, the producers should shorten the development cycle of new products and more actively seek user feedback. Also, lubricant makers should partner with vehicle manufacturers to create specific lubricants. Vetrov said.

In the long-term, they have to find ways to offer service development for commercial consumers, he concluded.

Photo: Dmitry Orlov/Dreamstime

Related Topics

Business    Finished Lubricants