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Sustainable Mobility

As the world moves to next-generation transport systems, we help clients design more sustainable mobility strategies, capture opportunities from industry disruptions, and position themselves to succeed in a low-carbon future.

Autonomous driving, connected vehicles, electrification, car sharing, and mass-transit systems are set to change the face of mobility at city, national, and global level over the next 20 years. We help clients understand the likely impact of these trends; evaluate the implications for their business, industry, or country; and deliver strategies that meet financial, environmental, and regulatory goals.

Drawing on our decades of consulting experience across sectors and countries, we support companies, industry bodies, city authorities, and governments with mobility topics globally. Through a forward-looking perspective that integrates automotive, cities, freight, infrastructure, last-mile delivery, utilities, and other dimensions, we help business leaders and policy makers to unlock opportunities, lead change, and navigate the mobility transition.

Examples of our work

Our client work ranges from cutting-edge projects for advanced industrial companies to citywide transformations of transport systems. Recent projects include:

Scaling electric vehicle solutions

Supporting a North American electric-vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure player in designing an optimized, national charging network and developing a concrete implementation plan

Reinvigorating urban mobility with visible street-level impact

Helping one of the world’s most congested cities to define a holistic transport plan to reduce commuting times and overcrowding; reduce pollution; modernize subway, rail, and ground transit systems; enhance ticketing options; build out cycling and pedestrian infrastructure; enforce taxi regulation; and limit truck movements

Accelerating an electrification portfolio in commercial transport

Working with a leading heavy-vehicle manufacturer to create a perspective on pathways to eliminate CO2 emissions from commercial transport by 2050 to meet Paris Agreement targets, and helping the client form a coalition to accelerate decarbonization in transport and logistics across industries

Featured Insights

Article

Expanding electric-vehicle adoption despite early growing pains
– The latest analysis of our Electric Vehicle Index shows the global electric-light-vehicle industry continues to make solid progress.... To accelerate growth further, several hurdles need to be overcome.
Article

Change vehicles: How robo-taxis and shuttles will reinvent mobility
– Uncertainties surround the future of shared autonomous vehicles. Modeling scenarios for their development and adoption can help... companies on the road ahead.
Podcast - McKinsey Quarterly

Getting beyond gridlock in cities
– With more than half the world’s population living in cities, congestion and pollution are worsening. Technology may hold... the solution—but only if city governments and companies collaborate.
Interactive - McKinsey Quarterly

Five Fifty: Discharged
– Rethinking how we travel through our cities and towns means tracking the emissions we create as we do. The good news is that traveling... may soon get cleaner.

Featured Capabilities

An integrated perspective on the future of mobility

The McKinsey Center for Future Mobility helps business leaders and policy makers prepare for a future of autonomous, connected, electrified, and shared mobility. With hubs in Beijing, Detroit, Munich, and Silicon Valley, the center brings together our industry expertise, proprietary research, and global convening power to support our clients as they make the transition to this new world.

Designing the future of ride sharing

McKinsey & Company and LUNAR are on a journey to gain insights and provide our perspective on the rapidly evolving rideshare landscape. This effort brings together industry and market analytics, deep consumer insights, and design to explore growth opportunities.
Learn more

Electric-vehicle benchmarking

Explore how the McKinsey Center for Future Mobility helps leaders in the mobility industries and public sector understand the transition to electrified cars.
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Electrified Vehicle Index

Our Electric Vehicle Index (EVI) analyzes the development of electric mobility in 15 selected countries. The EVI helps companies, governments, and the public understand two critical dimensions of e-mobility in each country: the market side (for example, EV share in overall light-vehicle market, government subsidies, charging infrastructure) and the industry side (for example, local OEM production of EVs, local production of EV components).

Battery-cost development

Our Battery Cost Model provides a bottom-up analysis of current costs and future development based on demand, technology, and supply scenarios. It simulates effects of technological improvements (for example, improved cathode chemistry), material price effects (shortage of cobalt supply), and learning and scale effects (increased EV adoption).

Mobility Value Chain model

Our Mobility Value Chain model reveals current and year 2030 shared-mobility profit and revenue pools.

Featured experts

Stefan Knupfer
Senior Partner, Stamford
Draws on 25 years experience working with leading-edge manufacturers to help clients develop successful strategies and achieve...
Eric Hannon
Partner, Frankfurt
Serves global automotive and mobility companies as a core leader of our Automotive & Assembly Practice and leads our global urban-mobility...
Russell Hensley
Partner, Detroit
Serves global automotive companies on strategic and operational transformations and co-leads the McKinsey Center for Future Mobility®
Shivika Sahdev
Partner, New York
Serves automotive and aerospace OEMs, suppliers, private-equity investors, and governments on disruptions in mobility and their...
Ting Wu
Partner, Shenzhen
Serves global automotive and components companies with extensive experience serving global automakers and suppliers

Related Practices

How we help clients