Category: Automotive

The Future of Mobility

by Dr Joachim Taiber (CSEP Advanced Research Fellow)

When we look at the current situation in the automotive segment, it is difficult to predict the short-term development of the market performance due to instabilities in the global supply chains driven by trade disputes and opportunistic consumer behaviour driven by regulatory changes. Another problem is the worsening financial situation of many (in particular legacy) OEMs and suppliers due to weakening market demand, price war, trade war, and innovation war.

There is no doubt that major markets like the USA and China are decoupling from a technological perspective (e.g., restriction of export of advanced chips, restriction of chip-making equipment) due to national security concerns, and European companies need to localize R&D and manufacturing in its key markets to stay competitive. Europe itself becomes both a target for electric and automated vehicle deployment from US and Chinese companies, while labour and energy costs are painfully high and undermine competitiveness.

China invested an enormous amount into its capabilities to develop and manufacture electrified vehicles, and they control key portions of the global supply chain in critical minerals, battery cell design, and battery production. China is the largest market in the world for full electric vehicles.

The US invested massively in its physical AI capabilities with the clear goal to be the global leader both in vehicle automation and automated vehicle operation, a plan that is being challenged by China. Waymo is scaling up its fully autonomous vehicle fleet in the US, which is being operated without a safety driver, and Tesla is trying to deploy its fleet of FSD-enabled vehicles as a cost-effective robotaxi. Uber is following a hybrid fleet model where it integrates fully autonomous vehicles as they become more available and more affordable.

The European OEMs are integrating a mix of technical solutions for automated driving developed in different parts of the world into their vehicle fleet to respond to consumer demand, which is driven and influenced by the most competitive and innovative system providers. Although the EU has regulatory readiness for automated driving for a while now, it is lacking operational experience in large-scale L4 deployments compared to the USA and China.

From a UK perspective, its strong position in AI behind the US and China could be leveraged with respect to the important role of physical AI in mobility. From a national security perspective, the most vulnerable supply chain positions are microchips, software licenses, rare earth materials, and battery cells. The potential IP being created in the UK in the context of vehicle electronics (power electronics and computing, but also sensors) and supporting IT infrastructure (data processing, data storage) is substantial and could be of strategic relevance for Europe to get technologically more self-reliant, which is in particular important from a dual-use perspective. The UK is also an attractive partner to validate finance and insurance models in the context of new business models to operate large-scale, hybrid, sustainable, and automated vehicle fleets. In 2026 the UK will start with extended tests and deployment of fully autonomous robotaxis with companies such as Waymo, Wayve, Uber, Lyft and Baidu in London metropolitan area which indicates a serious effort both of government and business to scale up automated driving and apply new regulatory frameworks such as the UK AV Act (published in 2024) and UNECE Automated Driving Systems (ADS) (expected to be published in 2026).

The following topics were identified in the Future Mobility bootcamp as most promising to be addressed from a strategic perspective of the UK automotive sector:

  • Streamline the SDV ecosystem in the UK end-to-end towards areas of expertise which are relevant from a global perspective (e.g. chip design, sensor design, compute algorithms)
  • Pioneer a new small EV car category in the UK, which implements active and passive safety elements innovatively, leading to a significant reduction in weight and size dimensions
  • Reorganize the supply chain towards sustainability and circularity, which reduces dependency on mining critical minerals, optimizes the use of energy, and minimizes the creation of microplastics and nanoplastics.
  • Implement new value-creating business models that leverage automation and sustainability, with much better asset utilization and more flexible use of vehicle components and infrastructure.

In the coming weeks, Imperial will work with relevant public- and private‑sector partners to build on the automotive sector review from the bootcamp, developing it into a comprehensive sector strategy and shaping the topics above into concrete, investable projects. These projects will be financed through instruments that draw on existing public programmes and crowd in private capital, in line with a holistic cluster‑based investment approach.

Reflections on AI-enabled transformation in sustainable mobility and outlook what to focus on in 2026

by Dr Joachim G. Taiber (Advanced Research Fellow at the Centre for Sectoral Economic Performance at Imperial College London)

The need for  physical mobility remains, although we can replace physical trips with digital communication solutions. But humans have the desire for in-person interaction and “to see things in person,” which triggers both professional and personal travel. The traumatic experience of COVID taught us that we can still function as a society even when we are physically largely immobilized, but it comes at a high social cost. We need energy to enable physical transportation. The need to replace fossil fuels with renewable sources to create energy and limit or even reverse the negative consequences on the environment has become a major driver in reducing carbon emissions. This development led to regulatory frameworks for how to become a carbon-free society, which support the development of electrified powertrains and battery-based energy storage technologies, which are now mass-produced and contribute to a gradual decarbonization of the global vehicle fleet. Although the speed of this transformation is different in different parts of the world, the general trend towards sustainable mobility is, in the meantime, irreversible at a global scale. The substantial progress in AI technologies based on advanced chip design and a non-linear increase in computing power provides new capabilities both on the product side and the infrastructure side of transportation, which leads to more automation in vehicle fleet operation, design, and manufacturing processes, as well as in the delivery of supply-chain-based and customer-centric services. The human operation of mobility devices – whether on ground, in the air, or on water always comes with a social cost of human error. The social acceptance of AI-operated vehicles is linked to a safety level that needs to be orders of magnitude better compared to human-operated vehicles. This is a fundamental technical challenge that requires enormous investments in computing, networking, and sensing capabilities, both on the mobility device as well as on the supporting infrastructure. Achieving AI-based fully automated fleet operation demands substantial amounts of energy for computing to train the vehicle fleet, which needs to be provided by suitable data center capabilities based on data that is harvested through sensors, considering local conditions as well as national security regulations in the different markets. Each vehicle in the fleet needs to be equipped with sufficient local inference capabilities to master the automated transportation tasks.Preparing the transportation industry to transform towards a fully automated and fully decarbonized mobility ecosystem is a task that requires the collaboration of multiple generations of leaders and experts, bundling their collective knowledge.

What needs to be addressed in 2026, in my opinion, is the following:

  • We need to focus on scaling up fully automated private and commercial decarbonized vehicle fleet deployment in all global markets.
  • We need to develop new business models around financing and operating fully automated vehicle fleets, replacing gradually the use of human-operated personally owned vehicles, which are underutilized, while increasing the affordability of sustainable mobility for the masses.
  • We need to develop more flexible and adaptive regulatory frameworks globally, supporting sustainable and automated mobility, which consider and monitor the economic and social costs of adoption.

Meet the CSEP Team Series: Dr Joachim Taiber

We’d love to hear a bit about you — could you share your background and professional experience?

My name is Joachim Taiber and I was born and raised in Germany.

All my academic training was performed in Switzerland at ETH Zurich where I studied Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science resulting in a PhD degree for technical sciences. After my studies I spent some time in a software start up in Zurich and then joined BMW Group in Munich to work as an automotive engineer. This career path led me to work in the US to engage in the development of an automotive engineering campus in South Carolina where BMW was a key investor which resulted in an academic engagement with Clemson University as a research professor. As a spin-off from working at Clemson University I led the development of the International Transportation Innovation Center (ITIC) which is an automotive proving ground for connected, automated and electrified vehicles. The center became the founding member of the International Alliance for Mobility Testing and Standardization (IAMTS) which I developed in the role of a managing director which brought me back to Europe as the organization is headquartered in Vienna. Imperial became a member of IAMTS which helped to develop the relationship to work with Dyson School of Engineering. I joined Imperial first as visiting professor in 2024 and became a advanced research fellow at CSEP shortly after where I am responsible for automotive affairs.

What are you working on right now, and what part of your work do you find most exciting?

I just completed working on the Automotive Sector Study and truly enjoyed learning more about the UK’s role how it could engage in transforming the future of mobility.

What drew you to work at CSEP, and how do you see your role contributing to its mission?

I was attracted by the opportunity to leverage my knowledge in the sector and contribute to its future in collaboration with colleagues that share my passion for mobility.

I’m particularly motivated by the chance to engage in mobility-related projects that create added value for the UK and its people as key source for innovation.

What do you hope to learn or gain from your time here?

I am eager to learn as much as possible for the excellent research and academic environment and help build meaningful relationships with industry and academic partners to work on transformative projects.

Do you have a favourite paper, study, book or project that has influenced your career path so far?

The Feynman lectures on physics.