Autumn 2030. A family from Hamburg wants to go on a hiking holiday to Berchtesgaden.

The luggage is stowed in the trunk of the car, now quickly get the car ready for the vacation trip.

It is almost 1000 kilometers to Bavaria.

So, for once, mom and dad treat themselves to a digital chauffeur.

In everyday life they like to be behind the wheel themselves, but they prefer to leave the dull motorway marathon to the computer control of their car, which can be switched on as required.

The manufacturer will deduct a few euros an hour for automated driving.

But you arrive relaxed in the evening, and the parents can watch the new James Bond film on the cockpit screen while on the move.

Marcus Theurer

Editor in the economy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

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And then of course the storage expansion for the battery of the electric car: The holiday home is a remote mountain hut without its own wallbox for recharging, so it's reassuring to know that the power storage of the family car has a little more capacity than usual during the holiday week can be booked spontaneously with a few clicks of the manufacturer's smartphone app.

The journey can already begin.

Wait, one more thing: It should be quite cool in the mountains - so heated seats for the whole family will be ordered for the next few days.

"Tesla is three to five years ahead"

Converting your own car and its functions, depending on the requirements, as if you were just folding down the back seat - in 2021 that will still sound like science fiction. Engineers, computer scientists and marketing specialists in the automotive industry are already working on exactly these and many other offers. Digitization, artificial intelligence and the networking of cars make it possible. "If the needs of the customer change, then the car will also be able to change," promises BMW Sales Director Pieter Nota. And Alex Koster, auto expert at Boston Consulting in Zurich, is certain: “It will happen with all manufacturers. Depending on their needs, customers will book things like seat heating, additional engine power and more range. "

What is practical and convenient for drivers, whether in Beijing or Potsdam, could become a huge new market for industry. Software-supported sales or "Function on Demand" is the name of this future business in the jargon of car managers. They think it will be huge. "We will experience a software boom in the coming years," says Harald Kröger, member of the group management of Bosch, the world's largest automotive supplier.

Volkswagen boss Herbert Diess also dared a bold forecast in July: the offers made possible by innovative software could already account for a third of the car market by the end of the decade and thus be a strong second pillar alongside traditional revenues from "hardware", i.e. car manufacturing . At the VW strategy day, Diess said there will be 1.2 trillion dollars in sales to be distributed globally in 2030.

The analysts of the major Swiss bank UBS even believe that there are more billions in this new mega-market (see graphic). For example, manufacturers could get into the auto insurance business because modern vehicles collect a lot of data on the driving behavior of customers, which in turn allows better conclusions to be drawn about how high their accident risk is. Many other digital services relating to the car are not even foreseeable today, says Patrick Hummel, car analyst at UBS in London. He compares the development with the smartphone: "It's like talking in 2008 about everything that will be available in the app store in 2021."