Nearly four years ago, 45 months to be precise, the first Shift magazine was mailed out with the print issue of Automotive News. It was May 28, 2018. The topic: “Dinosaurs and Disrupters: Who will rule the new automotive age?”
As Shift‘s then-editor, Sharon Silke Carty, explained, the mission of the magazine was “focusing on changes in the traditional auto industry. The changes that will mean the transformation of carmakers into transportation providers.”
Who knew back in 2018 just how rapidly that transformation would occur? Never mind the startups: Automakers are disrupting their own models, diving deep into electrification and autonomous technology, and setting goals that would have been considered brazen just a few years ago. Indeed, what had been fairly fringe topics in mobility have made their way into the mainstream of how car companies, suppliers and, yes, startups do business.
And we are changing with them. Mobility — and automotive tech in general — have ramped up to the point that they are now core to our news coverage here at Automotive News. At the same time, we are putting new emphasis on reaching our audience where they are, and increasingly that’s in the digital world. As such, this will be Shift‘s final issue as a printed magazine.
But we have exciting news. AN is expanding, not decreasing, our coverage of the topics you’re used to reading about in these pages. And we plan to explore an even broader variety of trends in personal transportation, so stay tuned! Find up-to-date coverage on the Web at autonews.com/mobility report; listen to our weekly podcast: “Shift: A Podcast About Mobility,” which you can find at autonews.com/shiftpodcast; and sign up for our free weekly Mobility Report newsletter at autonews.com/newsletter.
Meantime, we believe it’s fitting that this final issue focuses on the future. If automakers’ promises are realized, in 2035 — or even as early as 2030 — we’ll see lineups devoid of cars with internal combustion engines, and we’ll see true self-driving technology make its way into more vehicles, possibly even cars that the average consumer can buy.
And those other areas of personal transportation I just mentioned? In this issue, we offer a hint of what could happen with rail transportation — and even with RVs.
We’re at the dawn of an exciting new stage of mobility, and trust me, Automotive News not only will be along for the ride, we’ll help drive the conversation.