Gavin Green

‘The jobs at the heart of today’s car industry will go the same way as boatswains and wainwrights’

TOMORROW’S CARS WILL BE ‘iPhones on wheels’. Honestly, if I hear another car company boss say that I swear I’ll stick a Tumblr up his YouTube and he’ll no longer be my Facebook friend.

Car chiefs today are obsessed by connectivity. I hear more today at car press conferences about phoning friends, voice-activated messaging, streaming music, sat-nav and apps than I do about engines, handling and ride quality. The headline ‘innovation’ for the new Citroën C3 was its connected camera. Those great old DS engineers would be spinning in their hydro-pneumatic graves.

It is partly because car companies have been rubbish at connectivity for years. They are also desperate to woo millennials, who apparently have to be continually connected to lead fulfilling lives, and are about as interested in cars as Homer Simpson is in an evening jog.