A Conversation with MSU J-School Alumnus and Detroit Free Press Automotive Columnist Mark Phelan

<p>“It's fascinating because it's a mix of things that you could have seen coming and stuff that nobody ever imagined,” says <a href="https://twitter.com/mark_phelan">Phelan</a>, in talking about the state and future of the automotive industry. “The move toward electrification and reduced carbon emissions seems to really be gathering speed with vehicles that will become mainstream models. And more customers than ever before are considering whether they should get an electric vehicle. That's the foreseeable part of it, although it may have accelerated more in the last few months than most people expected.</p><p>“The unforeseeable is the fact that every automaker in the world is saying, ‘Where am I going to get the computer chips I need to build the cars that people want to buy?’ It is an after effect of the pandemic when automakers thought that sales would be depressed for a really long time. They're happy that sales recovered faster than they expected, but they canceled some of their contracts to buy parts. And the chip makers went out and got other customers.”</p><p>How do the auto companies define mobility?</p><p>“Sometimes I wonder if they know what they mean by that,” quips Phelan. “It's a word that resonates well with the investment community and with different groups of consumers because it can mean whatever they want. Generally, it breaks down into two buckets. One is developing vehicles that can increasingly take over some, most, or eventually all of the work of driving autonomous vehicles.</p><p>“The other half of it is adding services to vehicles that we never thought of before. It's a rare car these days that does not come with the capability of connecting to one of the digital assistants like Alexa. </p><p>“The idea is making it easier for people to do more in their cars, to get better directions, to avoid delays, to make reservations for a hotel or place a carry-out order, and all kinds of other stuff. And the reason that the automakers talk about it so much and that the investment community