Epilogue: New Challenges and New Engines

Abstract

The one-on-one race to the top of the car industry we have been examining thus far will be played out over the next decade, although many of the questions it raises will remain open through 2020 and well beyond. Volkswagen and Toyota are battling each other on some highly interesting fields, seen by many as no less than the fertile ground from which the next industrial revolution is springing. Several issues of crucial importance for humanity as a whole — global population growth, the oil-based world economy, alternative fuels, and the new variety of propulsion technologies — will of course have major consequences for the way in which Volkswagen, Toyota, and the entire industry work.

The automobile? A merely temporary phenomenon; I myself hold with horses.

—Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany (reigned from 1888 until 1918)