The changing landscape of personal transportation through technology, car sharing and ride sharing has put pressure on automakers to reconsider their roles as just car manufacturers. Hyundai is the latest company to announce the establishment of a group to study the future of mobility. The Project IONIQ Lab is described as an open innovation organization between the automaker, academic bodies and universities to research and propose new mobility ideas and technologies.

The Lab will explore four key areas: freedom to use mobility whenever and wherever; freedom to connect to everyday life while on the move; freedom from accidents and inconveniences; and freedom from environmental pollution and energy exhaustion.

The Lab has already produced a set of 12 megatrends targeted for 2030 that the company predicts will influence both the auto industry and all of humanity.

01. Hyper-Connected Society

02. Hyper-Aging Society

03. Eco-Ism

04. Multi-Layered Mash-Up

05. Context-Awareness Based Individualization

06. High Concept Society

07. Decentralization of Power

08. Anxiety and Chaos

09. Sharing Society

10. Co-Evolution

11. Mega-Urbanization

12. Neo Frontierism

Hyundai has provided detailed descriptions of each of the trends here, and many are self explanatory. To summarize, the world will have an older population living clustered in large cities. Technology will be much more of a real-time accessory to our lives. This will continue to evolve the way we communicate and stay informed. The convergence of physical and virtual realms will have further implications on governments and industry, facilitating inclusion of more groups of people while leading to a diversification of power. Labor will see an influx of AI and robots forcing human work towards creative and strategic tasks. Infrastructure investment will be linked closely to environmental partnerships and/or conservation.

Hyundai’s IONIQ brand is already offering products in the form of their first plug-in electric and hybrid electric car. The combination of a product line and innovation group is similar to what BMW is doing, although at this point Project IONIQ Lab looks to be taking a much broader view of the future.