Current and future situation of obsolescence in the automotive industry

Initially, obsolescence means a product’s wearing out. However, products can become out-of-date in many other ways too. For instance, General Motors designed new desirable models of cars that induce consumers to trade their cars, although there were still functional (Slade, 2006). We define obsolescence as all the techniques that induce a higher replacement rate of products, not resulting from normal wear and tear. This master thesis aims at understanding and describing obsolescence in the automotive industry, both currently and in the future. This sector is crucial for Europe and is at a crossroads in its history, with four trends shaping its future (i.e. Connected car, Autonomous car, Electric car and Shared mobility). Therefore, we conducted 35 semi-structured interviews to collect different points of view on the current and future state of obsolescence in this industry.