The future role of the German automotive industry in autonomous private transport

This dissertation examines the current and future roles of the automotive industry in the develop-ment and provision of autonomous driving from an innovation system perspective. It focuses on the interaction between the automotive and ICT sectors, incorporating sectoral and regional context factors. Based on the findings, four scenarios are developed for the German industry within the context of global market development for autonomous vehicles. In the final step, the economic implications of these scenarios are simulated up to the year 2050 using a macroeconomic simulation model (ISI-Macro). The thesis thus presents a novel approach for deriving prospective scenarios from an innovation system analysis and estimating their macroeconomic effects through a modeling exercise.
The dissertation combines sectoral, national, and technological innovation system approaches, explicitly focusing on the interaction between the two sectoral systems within a functional innovation system. The developed "integrated innovation system analysis" approach considers contextual factors in the development and dynamics of innovation systems, demonstrating how system interactions can be integrated into a functional innovation system analysis by selecting suitable indicators and by adding an additional function. The results provide insights into the structures of a new system developing around autonomous driving in Germany, the USA, and China, identifying factors that significantly influence the transformation of the affected value chains. In an
adapted scenario-building process, findings from the innovation system analysis are translated into four prospective scenarios. These combine global market development scenarios for autonomous driving with scenarios for the positioning of the German automotive industry. As part of the macroeconomic modeling, the core characteristics of the scenarios are translated into quantitative impulses, estimating the possible effects on German GDP, value added, and employment up to 2050. The simulation accounts for the direct, indirect, and induced effects of the introduction of autonomous driving on 72 economic sectors in Germany. The potential differences in GDP, based on the varying positions of the German automotive industry, reach up to 4.75% in an ambitiously evolving global market. The analysis highlights the widespread impact of developments in the automotive industry on various sectors in the German economy.