If you believe some experts, the auto industry as we know it is about to drive off a cliff.
Self-driving vehicles and ride-sharing services are going to upend the idea of traditional vehicle ownership, they say, leading to fewer people owning cars, which will result in a massive drop in overall vehicle sales.
They're right on the first point. They couldn't be more wrong on the second.
These bleak, not-so-distant future predictions for automakers and parts makers come courtesy of experts who mostly work on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley.
Their arguments are buttressed, they believe, every time a major automaker announces plant closures and layoffs as a result of a planned pivot toward these new technologies — investments made with no real timetable for a payoff.
And people whose job it is to sell cars are in for an even ruder awakening, or so this line of thinking goes. The number of car dealerships would crater in this scenario, dropping, some predict, by as much as 50 percent by 2025.