Automakers Morph Into Mobility Suppliers

My colleague Jon LeSage writes in his Green Auto Digest on the future of shared mobility services and carsharing services that will be offered by automakers and car rental companies:  Carsharing services are presenting a business model for automakers to transition over to total transportation companies of the future. 

Maybe I’m missing something, which wouldn’t be the first time, but I don’t see how this can possibly work.  Business pundits say, for example, that if Kodak had simply realized they were in the photography business and not the camera and film business, they’d still be here.  And that makes sense.

But is there really a scenario in which automakers stay profitable with building and selling cars?  I don’t see it. Imagine you’re Ford and you’re earning $6.4 billion on about $160 billion in revenues from selling steel, and now you think a significant portion of that is  going to come from car-sharing services?  I’m betting against that.