Abstract
This paper examines the scope for network platform business models offering ‘automobility-as-a-service’ to disrupt the existing automotive market and industry. The paper uses three examples (Getaround, BlaBlaCar and Uber) to illustrate distinct versions of the network platform business model concept. Despite expectations that automobility-as-a-service, enabled by digital platforms, may erode the market for new cars and the existing model of individual car ownership, the paper argues that it is not necessarily disruptive to the incumbent automotive companies. Rather, network platform business models via automobility-as-a-service are argued to be one mechanism by which the primacy of the car may be retained. In turn this has important implications for the durability of the automotive industry, and of the unsustainable aspects of platform business models.
Highlights
This paper asks whether new network platform business models for companies acting as intermediaries in the provision of automobility will constitute a disruptive threat to the established automotive industry
There is an acceptance of the idea that the industry currently known for making cars is in a process of morphological shift into mobility services, in part powered by new entrants acting between vehicle manufacturers and their customers (Pallaro et al, 2015)
Network platform business models are readily applied to automobility services and, as this paper shows, in a variety of formats
Summary
This paper asks whether new network platform business models for companies acting as intermediaries in the provision of automobility will constitute a disruptive threat to the established automotive industry. There is an acceptance of the idea that the industry currently known for making cars is in a process of morphological shift into mobility services, in part powered by new entrants acting between vehicle manufacturers and their customers (Pallaro et al, 2015). This shift is thought to have the potential to redefine the relationship between vehicle manufacturers and their customers, and the future of automobility in general. As Casprini et al (2019) observe following their study of BlaBlaCar, more research is needed into the multiplicity of start-ups and business models emerging around mobility services
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