FILE PHOTO: Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk speaks onstage during a delivery event for Tesla China-made Model 3 cars at its factory in Shanghai, China January 7, 2020. REUTERS/Aly Song/File PhotoTesla's market capitalization surged above US$600 billion, making the once wobbly startup founded by billionaire Elon Musk worth more than the five top-selling global vehicle making groups combined.
Other powerful forces also shook the auto industry's status quo this year. The COVID-19 pandemic stripped away the sales and profits that incumbent automakers had counted on to fund methodical transitions to electric vehicles. China's rapid recovery from the pandemic exerted an even more powerful gravitational pull on industry investment.
The shift toward electric vehicles is speeding a parallel transformation of vehicles into largely digital machines that get much of their value from software that powers rich visual displays and features such as automated driving systems. Tesla's use of smartphone-style over-the-air software upgrades was once a unique feature of the Silicon Valley brand. In 2020, the best-selling model line in the United States, the Ford F-150 pickup, was redesigned to offer over-the-air software updates, making the technology as mainstream as it gets.In the best of times, traditional internal-combustion vehicles would have faced huge costs and disruptions to their workforces to evolve to electric, software-intensive vehicles.