CES 2024 - Who run the world?
This article is one of eight in a series exploring the key themes from CES 2024. To download the full report from the show, covering seven themes, five product launches, and a few other lovely things besides, click here.
Why is this interesting?
The scale and scope of Hyundai and Kia's ambitions in infrastructure and logistics are something to behold. But do they have the permission to play at this level? And the depth of competence to execute?
Key products:
The critical questions:
The detail:
If we're to believe Kia's PR hype, the city of the future will be run by the Korean car maker. From the smart city software to the commercial vehicles and robotaxis, from the architecture to digital and physical infrastructure, and even standards for logistics containers and loading dock heights, Kia wants to control them all.
Hyundai wants to do the same for the production, distribution and utilisation of hydrogen as a fuel source for mobility and local energy generation.
They're bold ambitions, but has either company earned the right to execute them? And do they have the competence?
Infrastructure is slow and expensive to build and in many cases builds on what came before. This demands a deep understanding of the history of a place and what makes it unique.
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It also depends on the successful orchestration of many external stakeholders to implement. This demands an ability to engage with and accommodate the needs of competing interests. Neither of these have been core competencies of car companies, but are core to the competence of cities, and engineering, infrastructure and architecture firms.
Without evidence of these collaborations, Kia and Hyundai's presentations felt like well-intentioned student projects: they aim to solve huge problems, but do so in isolation from the complexity of the real world.
I dive much deeper in to this topic in my CES 2024 report, which you can download here.
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What's StudioPhro*?
StudioPhro* is the independent design strategy consultancy of Drew Smith - that's me!
I'm an analyst, design strategist and storyteller who started out as a car designer.
I help leaders in the automotive and mobility sectors imagine the future and make it happen.
If you'd like to talk about thought leadership, strategic opportunity mapping, design research and strategy, or executive sparring for design leaders, drop me a message here on LinkedIn or take a look at the StudioPhro* website.
Presenter and Producer at The Motoring Podcast. UK Car of the Year Judge. Member of the Northern Group of Motoring Writers
11moGood old CES, where the ideas from the brain storming session just get wheeled out, as you said on the last episode of Looking Out. The vans are great, I love them. The rest is fantasy that cannot happen unless they're willing to control an entire city (or someone lets them) AND they add a layer of friction when changing everything from the global shipping standards to this one. Really enjoying your breakdown, by the way.
"It also depends on the successful orchestration of many external stakeholders to implement. This demands an ability to engage with and accommodate the needs of competing interests. Neither of these have been core competencies of car companies, but are core to the competence of cities, and engineering, infrastructure and architecture firms." The ghosts of modernism reanimated - very reminiscent of Corbusier's Chandigarh and Pruitt-Igoe/