Autonomous driving is moving from pilot to real-life rollout, with Waymo, VW, Tesla, Baidu leading the way and AD(AS) features increasingly determining vehicle values. In the UK, unfettered by tariffs and customer "inertia", BYD is rewriting the rules of the EV market with record sales, as a test-bed for continental Europe (?). Stellantis is partnering with Insurtech Wrisk, as a further proof point for insurance migrating into the app. And at our Mobility Community event with Qorus, AWS, Allianz Partners and Société Générale, we discussed what it really takes to drive transformation across silos. As always, we’ve added the CVA take on what it all means – so you’re not just up to date, but one step ahead.

Once considered futuristic, autonomous driving is now operational and expanding rapidly. Tesla recently achieved its first autonomous delivery in Texas, yet its supervised robotaxi fleet has faced multiple reported incidents, raising concerns about reliability and safety. Waymo now offers over 250,000 weekly robotaxi rides in the U.S. and plans international expansions.
 
Waymo's impact in specific use contexts is illustrated by its rapid gain of 30% market share in the San Francisco area ride hailing market, versus Uber and Lyft... In China, Baidu’s Apollo Go operates fully driverless services and aims to expand into Europe and Southeast Asia. BYD's affordable "God’s Eye" driver-assistance technology is also broadening consumer access to autonomy. Mercedes-Benz and BMW continue leading Level 3 autonomy. Mercedes secured approval in Germany for its DRIVE PILOT system, while BMW integrates Level 2 and 3 autonomy in premium vehicles. Volkswagen is partnering with Mobileye for autonomous ID.Buzz AD robotaxi services by 2026 with Moia e.g. in Hamburg.

CVA perspective:

Recent progress on AI & processing power has accelerated AD ambitions. It is true that "mass adoption of full autonomy everywhere" remains a vision that is still far off. However, AD is gaining substantial ground in specific use cases (urban ride hailing) with Baidu, Waymo and the likes clearly showing the path for AD based business models in the coming years. Even more importantly, the extension of ADAS (digitally supported driving) towards autonomous driving is about to become an obligatory vehicle feature: While AD L2 +L3 features have largely been accessible for premium customers (Mercedes / BMW), players like BYD are democratizing the technology and make it affordable even for the low-priced volume segment. This Softwarization transition may already impact the medium-term plans of OEMs. With questions such as: What will democratization of AD-features do to non-AD residual values? What is the value of upgradability, even without the features? What will be the business model of AD-like features for OEMs and service players (LeaseCos...)? As with the electric powertrain, there will not only be winners in the upcoming transition. It is definitely worth anticipating...

The UK's battery electric vehicle (BEV) market is growing steadily in 2025, primarily driven by the rapid rise of Chinese brands. However, current BEV market share remains well below government targets.

BYD has emerged as a standout performer, with Q1 2025 sales (9,271 units) surpassing its entire 2024 total. March alone saw sales jump 754% year-over-year, and May followed with a 407% increase.
 
Key to BYD’s rapid growth is the competitively priced Dolphin Surf, introduced at £18,650 (€21,800), significantly increasing pressure on the affordable EV segment.

With ambitious expansion plans, BYD aims to become the UK's leading car brand within five years, reshaping the market landscape through affordability and innovation.

With no import tariffs on Chinese BEVs the UK recognizes one of the most fierce competitive BEV environments in Europe with several Chinese brands aiming to build-up their first European foothold. 

CVA perspective:

The UK’s decision not to impose tariffs creates a sizable test field right at the doorstep of continental Europe. While intensified competition is likely to benefit consumers, the situation for OEMs, fleet owners, financiers, and other industry players will be more challenging. We expect heightened competition to exert further downward pressure on price levels, negatively impacting OEM margins as well as residual values (RVs) of existing portfolios. Additionally, new market entrants must demonstrate their long-term commitment—without robust retail networks, workshop infrastructure, and spare-parts systems, even the strongest warranty and lowest prices may not suffice.

In the UK, Stellantis Financial Services has signed a multi-year deal with Insurtech Wrisk that covers vehicle brands and Spoticar (Stellantis’ Used Car distribution brand) and migrates all existing “Stellantis Insurance” customers onto a single cloud platform. Under the agreement, Wrisk will manage the direct-to-customer insurance offering using its digital subscription-based platform. 
 
The Wrisk cooperation allows Stellantis to give every driver a flexible, monthly-rolling policy, in-app self-service and instant drive-away cover while feeding granular data into underwriting models. Wrisk offers a global technology platform, access to data sources of OEMs and insurers for optimization and proposes in the UK intermediary services through its fully owned MGA (Managing General Agent).

CVA perspective:

The Stellantis-Wrisk partnership is a further proof-point that car insurance is moving from agents / brokers into the carmaker’s app, "embedding" the insurance product in the larger purchasing and usage process. This follows initiatives by Mercedes-Benz, Tesla, BYD, Nio… to bundle cover at point of sale. For drivers the appeal is friction-free sign-up and seamless access to usership, as well as policies that adapt to mileage or subscription length. For OEMs it is control of pricing levers and customer data—assets that once sat with insurers and aggregators – as well as claims traffic and after-sales margin. In this model insurers are limited to their carrier role, and quite exchangeable, while dealers and OEM Captives own distribution, upsell and the lifetime relationship. Incumbent insurers will need to develop Insurtech capabilities and / or partner with data-rich OEMs to not see auto portfolios evaporate over time. In the moving automobility ecosystem with its increasing need for flexibility and adaptability, agile Insurtech MGAs emerge as the dominant “risk managers”. 

On May 10th, we had the pleasure of our first in-person Mobility Community event, together with our sponsors: Société Générale, Allianz Partners and Amazon Web Services. Close to 80 executives joined us for a series of in-person panels and speaker slots to discuss on: where we are in transformation, and how partnerships can help.

We heard from some great speakers across the OEMs, Auto-financers, Insurers and start-ups on how we progress EVs (not easy, batteries and charging are critical!), where margin will go in the mid-term (services in-life, and multi-cycle become key) and how to encourage disruption across the industry whether via start-up or in the incumbents (culture is the make-or-break factor....). Thanks very much to everyone for making the time and participating - we are convinced that cross-silo thinking is key to the success of the industry going forwards. There continues to be value in automobility and a need for customers to travel, but we need to keep innovating on how to manage in a turbulent period.

Upcoming Mobility Community:

Attendees got a sneak-peak, but we will be launching the 2025 version of our Qorus & CVA Mobility report this month; stay tuned for an email with further details to come. In addition, we will have our next webinar upcoming in early September, where we will have a more detailed de-brief of the findings from the Summit. To stay up to date, you can join the community below.


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