Q You are one of the founders of Zip Car, a huge innovation in transport when it launched 15 years ago. What do you think is the next big innovation in transportation?
A What is really going to affect how we use vehicles is the connected car. Especially the connectivity between vehicles and from vehicles to buildings. So I think of it as one part of a larger mesh of the Internet of Things and cars will be a very important part of that. If we think about cars today they are the last frontier for our wireless connectivity revolution, so we are really ready for them transforming with this wireless access. There are a wealth of options for innovation.

Q Can you give an example of how this connectivity is going to improve transportation?
A Typically when we think about connected vehicles and the benefits of them it has to do with safety. But there are also more straightforward benefits such as when I get in my car it will know my appointment from my phone and it will immediately load up the directions to that appointment. Or if there is an accident ahead it will tell me about the accident. With these vehicles connecting up to each other it will be interesting to see what the relationship is going to be between cars. One idea I think of as the Cinderella car is where you have a young driver and they have been told by their parents they have to be home by midnight. So when they try to start the car after midnight it will not start unless they call home and the parent says OK I’ll enable the car for you.

Q You spoke in your keynote address very passionately about climate change, what do you think the automotive industry can do to help in this area?
A Today I think that 22 per cent of emissions worldwide are from the transportation sector and personal vehicles are about 17 per cent, so it is a very significant piece of what we’re putting into the air. Of course the way to improve that is you have more fuel-efficient cars, which is happening but for me that is quite slow. So how can we work on improving behaviour to make these changes? I am particularly interested in things like sharing rides and sharing cars. When we share rides we are putting people in that vehicle and when we share cars we change the business model from me buying my car, where when I make my transportation decision it is just the cost of fuel, to when you rent a car by the hour. The result of that is that people drive 80 per cent fewer miles than if they owned their own car. So just shifting people into paying in real time for car travel means that they decide ‘you know what, I’m going to walk or I’m going to do three errands at once or I will stay home’. So it really transforms how you use cars.

Q Many of the FIA clubs’ businesses are based on membership models, what do you think is the future for membership models for these types of organisations?
A If I think about why do we make companies, we make companies to do things we as individuals can’t do. Membership organisations have typically been that. They have done the bulk negotiating, they have done the aggregating of demand, they are providing benefits to individuals that they by themselves couldn’t get. So I think membership organisations should look more into what are those attributes that our future lifestyle will want, that isn’t car related, that isn’t car focused. And then to say what are the assets and networks and expertise that our members have that they would like to be sharing with each other. We are the enabler for that sharing of those talents and assets and knowledge they have and that we can now be an aggregator and push out.