Why the electric car is not the solution to the transport revolution

Electromobility can only be the beginning of a sustainable transport revolution. The urban transport system needs a fundamental overhaul.

Anyone discussing the future of mobility today almost inevitably ends up talking about the electric car . In political discourse, advertising, and opinion pieces, the electric car is seen as a symbol of progress. The plug replaces the exhaust pipe, and our consciences are eased. But this is precisely where the problem begins: the transportation revolution is reduced to the drive system – and thus misses its own mark. Because the electric car is not the solution, but merely a symptom of a much larger transformation.

Because at its core, the system remains the same: we're replacing millions of combustion engine vehicles with millions of electric cars that consume just as much space, spend just as much time stuck in traffic, and occupy just as much area as before. The real promise of the mobility revolution was never just electric propulsion, but a different understanding of movement. And Europe is far from achieving that.

But there are also positive developments, and these are coming from startups. Mobility founders share one idea: mobility is not a product, but a network. While traditional manufacturers have completely abandoned their Mobility-as-a-Service approach, young companies are programming the operating system of mobility . They are connecting energy, data, traffic, and urban planning into a digital organism.

In Potsdam, the startup MotionTag analyzes anonymized movement data to make traffic planning smarter. The Berlin-based company Swobbee builds battery swapping stations for micromobility and is exporting the concept to Amsterdam and Warsaw. And platforms like The Mobility House and GridX integrate electric vehicle fleets into the power grid so that energy is not only consumed but also fed back in.

The development of cross-system collaborations is now also evident outside of Germany. In Luxembourg, Stellantis, together with the Chinese company Pony.ai, plans to launch autonomous, fully electric vans on the road starting in 2026. The partnership was officially announced in mid-October.

Just a few days later, Baidu announced it would be bringing its "Apollo Go" robotaxi system to Switzerland – in partnership with PostBus, a state-owned public transport company. And in Hamburg, VW subsidiary Moia has long collaborated with the public transport system. These projects demonstrate that the boundaries between private transport, public transport, and technology platforms are blurring. The future of mobility no longer lies in the hands of individual manufacturers, but rather in collaborations across industries and countries.

This systems thinking is also crucial for energy infrastructure. Charging points alone are not enough; what's needed are data platforms that coordinate networks, vehicles, and users in real time. Startups like Optibus and the French company Vianova are developing software that supports cities in traffic management – ​​using AI to analyze traffic data and dynamically adjust routes. This transforms mobility into a learning system that reacts to demand, weather, and energy availability.

The real question, therefore, is not how many electric cars we will have on the road by 2030, but how we design the systems behind them. How can urban planning, energy, and transportation be integrated? And how can we make mobility, especially in cities, more flexible and democratic?

The future of mobility isn't created in a wind tunnel, but in a network. It requires less horsepower and more APIs. It's driven by software, not car bodies. Anyone who truly wants to rethink mobility can't stop at the plug. It's about energy flows, spatial planning, data sovereignty, and a service culture. The mobility revolution begins where we stop counting cars and start understanding systems.