Q Your position as Editor-in-chief of WIRED is about being at the cutting edge of technology, so how do you feel about the future of the automobile?
A It’s an exciting moment of transition
but also of opportunity. There are some unstoppable trends that are rising very fast, on an exponential curve. The
move towards autonomous vehicles is accelerating, partly because it’s going
to save a lot of lives. The artificial intelligence that is being embedded in transportation is going to make things easier. We are in a networked world, with sensors feeding back data, which is going to mean your journeys are going to become more efficient.

So the rules are changing, but I think for a successful CEO of an established company, as long as you are willing to challenge your own thinking, your own business model, your own view of where the value lies inside your business, you will be fine. I worry about those that think we’ve had a very nice profit line for the last 20 or 30 quarters, nothing is going to change and we can let this one pass. That is a very risky strategy.

Q That shift towards a very digital automotive future will clearly have an impact on motoring businesses such as automobile clubs. How best can they position themselves to deal with it and to profit from it?

A I think you have to work out where
you are in the value chain and how you cannot be commoditised. If you run a fleet of supermarket delivery trucks you may have to start thinking ‘if there are
lots of autonomous trucks in the future and it’s safer and maybe even lower priced, where does that leave me?’

If you are a taxi service, where can

you add value? Uber is now offering all sorts of additional services delivering food, supermarket good, because it has that supply chain locked down. Amazon is suffering because one of its biggest costs is delivery, so it is having to look at, not just drones, but paying individuals to deliver to another individual. We still have problems getting physical products from place to place but there are going to be clever new ways of using real time data, showing where there is supply and matching that to demand.

Another area that is changing is
our idea of ownership. If I’m used to accessing a car club for a day or a few hours, I’m increasingly going to start thinking ‘do I need to own a car – this huge sunk cost, this car that is outside my house doing nothing for 96 per cent of the time?’

Q Are car clubs a space motoring organisations can occupy? Is their position as traditional service providers and the loyalty that goes with an asset they can exploit?
A Of course. In a commoditised internet world, real value comes in trust and confidence in a company’s ability to deliver on its promise and I think if you

are one of the members of the Federation you probably have a lot of brand equity in your reputation. As long as you’re prepared to challenge what your business is there is no reason why you shouldn’t take a prime role in the new world.

The challenge is that a lot of start-ups come along with very few fixed costs, with very few ways of fixed thinking, and they can make decisions very quickly and they can iterate. If something isn’t working they move quickly and change. It’s much harder if you are an existing company with shareholders. You have to pray that your board is going to be willing for you to tear up the existing business model.

Q If you could give one piece of advice to clubs that are dealing with the technological changes taking place in the world of mobility what would it be?

A Stay curious and meet people from the start-up world and understand how they are thinking and force yourself to challenge your assumptions. 

Watch the exclusive video interview of David Rowan!