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The year 2025 begins with President Trump’s call for Greenland, Canada and Panama to be placed under the US flag. We can learn something from this for the automotive industry.
The justified, knee-jerk indignation is not long in coming. But in fact, these three countries are already closely integrated economically and culturally. The recent history of Panama, Greenland and Canada has not been so strongly influenced by any other country.
On October 4, 1925, the USS Cleveland stopped a fleet of armed Panamanian boats off Colón, preventing a genocide against the Kuna and thus securing the autonomy of this indigenous people to this day. Without this effort, the Kuna would probably no longer be autonomous today and would be one of the few active matriarchies. There are numerous stories about the influence of the USA in all three countries.
Neither Greenland, Panama nor Canada could survive economically and in terms of security policy without the USA. At least that is evident from the retail chains, the vehicle fleets and the integrated military surveillance with a little research.
Trump’s statements are better accepted as signals.
Take him seriously. Not literally.
If we take Trump’s statement as a signal of a deeper trend, an underlying truth, then the future can be predicted more accurately: the role of the US will become much more prominent in these three countries in the coming years and the decisions in Washington will shape the future of these countries more than, for example, the decisions in Brussels or Beijing.
The concept of signals is very well suited to better understanding trends, strategies and possible futures. And possibly to influence or adapt to them. A few more “signals” are emerging for 2025. I will list three fundamental and easily overlooked ones here:
1. personally trained AI bots take over our jobs.
Working in the office without ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or similar is a clear sign of optimization potential. Anyone working without ChatGPT or similar today can be sure that their work will change fundamentally in the near future. At the latest when infinite memory is added.
When we work with AI today, the AI “forgets” most of it. Our input improves the LLM, but is not yet incremental for us today.
Infinite memory would allow every person and every company to let the AI work on specific problems for months and years. In the end, everyone will be as productive as their AI has been trained to be. Specific human knowledge and experience will lose value as the AI is just as powerful and works around the clock.
This means that AI will soon be able to replace many office jobs. All activities related to design, consulting, education and coaching will change. The entire education system will change, albeit slowly. We will no longer train people and employees, but AI bots.This means that AI will soon be able to replace many office jobs. All activities related to design, consulting, education and coaching will change. The entire education system will change, albeit slowly. We will no longer train people and employees, but AI bots.
But only specific human skills, such as empathic conversation between people, will not be replaced. You can prepare for this. Last year, I outlined two strategies for preparing for this.
Today, they are more relevant than ever.
2. Automated driving made tangible with Robotaxi
He did it again: he has promised something UNBELIEVABLE that could become reality.
When Elon Musk decided against LIDAR (because humans do not have comparable sensor technology and still drive safely), all the experts agreed that cameras alone were not enough.
Elon Musk relied on his AI. In December, he and his team connected 100,000 NVIDIA H200 Blackwell GPUs in a supercluster within 19 days. Jensen Huang described Musk as “super human” and noted that such projects typically take four years from planning to operations. The next step is to create a supercluster of 200,000 GPUs.
The capacity for AI training has grown exponentially overnight and will continue to do so.
The emergence of DeepSeek further increases the chances of automated driving.
At the same time, Tesla generates the largest training data set in the world with a fleet of around 7.5 million connected cars. Combined with the largest AI cluster and a possible acquisition of Uber, the robotaxi could very quickly become a reality.
If Tesla buys Uber, the fully automated robotaxi without LIDAR will change our mobility very quickly.
3. Electric cars cannot be enforced with regulation alone.
From January 1 of this year, a fleet target of 93.6 g/km of CO₂ emissions will apply. This means that at least 20% of cars sold must be purely electric, as they emit 0g CO₂. With a total market of 12 million new vehicles, around 2.4 million would have to be purely electric.
In 2024, 1.3 million BEVs were sold in Europe, which corresponds to a decline of 5% compared to the previous year. The EVs currently sold are not enough to compensate for the deviations in fleet targets. Even if traditional manufacturers buy CO2 certificates from EV manufacturers, this will not be enough. There is too little demand for electric vehicles. The ceiling is simply too short.
This will lead to billions being paid out by car manufacturers, who are already facing difficult times.
There are various reasons for the sluggish sales:
- Economic uncertainty, including inflation and rising energy prices
- Still a lack of charging infrastructure, especially for fast chargers and simple billing systems
- Reduction of purchase incentives and subsidies
- Less interest in “Greenwashing
- High prices
I wrote down my own test experiences in 2024 here.
The manufacturers, who are obliged to pay the fines, have little influence on the reasons for not buying electric vehicles. At the same time, they are key pillars of the national economies of Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Hungary and several others. It is to be expected that this regulation will change.
Innovation is needed in the regulation of climate protection requirements in the EU. Otherwise, it will lose credibility due to non-compliant laws that damage the global competitiveness of the European automotive industry.
But electric cars will certainly become established. The only thing that cannot be determined by politicians is when a technology will become established on the market and with customers.
