KPMG released its 26th Global Automotive Executive Survey on October 21, polling 775 industry executives - 330 in Europe, 260 in Asia-Pacific and 185 in the Americas.
On the shifting center of gravity, 48% of respondents expect six of the global top ten carmakers to be headquartered in China by 2035, and 51% believe software and digital technology will have replaced traditional vehicle engineering as the main source of corporate competitiveness - with industry value migrating toward software, batteries, smart electronics and AI services.
The survey also exposes an execution gap: only 36% of AI and software projects successfully scale beyond pilots, 92% of companies need at least 12 months to deploy a single enterprise-level new capability, and more than a third need two years or more. Regionally, Asia-Pacific leads Europe and the Americas in AI investment (57% of respondents) and autonomous driving / ADAS integration (52%).
KPMG cautioned that the findings reflect surveyed executives' expectations rather than the firm's official forecast - but Chinese carmakers' sustained electrification and intelligence push is clearly reshaping how global leadership imagines the next decade of competition.
Image: Vehicles on display at an international mobility show. Source: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).
