2019 was all about electrification, and this year saw multiple top car brands plugging into the trend. While Tesla’s Model 3 was by far the best-selling EV in America this year, we saw a strong showing from competitors with vehicles like the Ford Mustang Mach E, the Chevrolet Bolt, the Jaguar I-Pace, and the Volkswagen E-Golf making their debuts. The momentum will continue into 2020 as more EVs are on their way from Ford, Mercedes, Porsche, and Volvo, to name a few (and of course, recently revealed Tesla Cybertruck). Overall, 2019 changed the game for electric vehicles with cars reaching longer ranges on a single charge and consumers overcoming range anxiety.
We also saw how investment in new tech can translate into layoffs. 2019 turned out to be one of the worst years for auto workers, with Daimler and Audi announcing 20,000 job cuts this month. Those automakers joined with Nissan, Ford, and Nio, all recently announcing slashes in the workforce. And those numbers are only going to get worse. Bloomberg predicts more than 80,000 auto job cuts in the coming years. Many auto workers expressed their unrest over the last few months, with the UAW hosting one of the largest strikes of the decade against General Motors. The strike lasted for five weeks and ended in a new contract being ratified. The strike inspired others like Fiat Chrysler workers who recently came to a new labor agreement, getting better pay and health care from the company.
Electric vehicles aren’t just for the road: An air-shuttle service in Vancouver successfully tested what promises to be the first commercial aircraft powered entirely by batteries. And while the technology is currently only available for short flights, the plane-maker Airbus announced that it plans to start having its planes draft off each other — a test of whether tailgating can save fuel and cut emissions by up to 10 percent.
And we can’t forget about the heated scooter wars of 2019. Lime has grown rapidly over the last year, with over 100 million rides in September in 120 markets around the globe. The company is hoping to reach profitability in 2020. But the scooter company faces stiff competition from Bird, Spin, and Uber’s Jump, which have their own scooter fleets around the world. With more scooters littering the sidewalks, both local governments and city dwellers have conflicting opinions about the micro mobility options. Washington, DC, has decided to cut the number of scooter operators in half for next year following in line with other cities like Los Angeles which suspended Uber’s permit to rent scooters and bikes in the city. Whether you love them or hate them it seems the scooter wars are sure to continue into 2020.
Finally, off the Earth, It was a huge year for space travel. Virgin Galactic became the first commercial space tourism company to trade publicly on a stock exchange. While commercial travel to space once seemed like a far off idea, Virgin Galactic’s IPO signals more realistic confidence from investors. NASA meanwhile took steps toward putting men and women back on the Moon, unveiling the enormous Space Launch System rocket and pushing it to the limit in tests. We also saw the first all-female space walk in 2019 with engineers Christina Koch and Jessica Meir of NASA on the exterior of the International Space Station.
Alan Neuhauser contributed to this story.*
