Toyota and Hyundai are no longer describing themselves as car companies. Instead, they’re in the business of mobility.
The state of Arkansas is also leaning into mobility. The governor, the University of Arkansas, and a consortium of business leaders (including some of the same people who made sure Northwest Arkansas got an airport) are planning to make the state into a center for next generation transportation. There’s even a Council on Future Mobility.
Our home state
We’re headquartered in Northwest Arkansas. So are major fleets of semi trucks, comapnies using self-driving vehicles and drones for deliveries, and Walmart. Lithium for batteries is mined in Smackover, and a new steel plant is coming to northeastern Arkansas. What’s more, Arkansas is smack-dab in the middle of the country, making it equally handy for all parts of the country. We know it’s true that Arkansas is a logistics powerhouse and a transportation hub.
So why not future mobility?
Studies suggest that flying cars will take off (no pun intended) in U.S. markets in the next two decades. They’ll bring in plenty of new jobs.
“For example, with an ability to make four times as many trips as a regular car, flying cars could revolutionize the ride-sharing industry,” says Morgan Stanley. “The autonomous aircraft ecosystem would also include makers of sensors, batteries, aircraft parts, and the software systems to operate the vehicles, monitor aircraft traffic, provide network security and more.”
The plan is to include drone delivery, autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles, micro-mobility, flying cars and driverless vehicles, as well as things that haven’t been invented yet.
Mobility defined
A search for “mobility” still shows things like wheelchairs first, but Deloitte says this: “The Future of Mobility™: The entire way we travel from point A to point B is changing. This transformation is creating a new ecosystem of personal mobility, with implications affecting more than just the automotive industry.”
McKinsey, ignoring Deloitte’s claim to have trademarked the phrase, identifies disruptrs in the future of mobility as “autonomous, connected, electrified.”
Exoskeletons will be part of the new landscape, too. And of course Rexroth’s eLION platform and the eGFT8000 drive.
We’re ready.