the silicon valley brand in 2020 the bestselling model line in the united states the ford f150 pickup was redesigned to offer overtheair software updates making the technology as mainstream as it getsthe pandemic and chinain the best of times traditional internalcombustion vehicles would have faced huge costs and disruptions to their workforces to evolve to electric softwareintensive vehicles but the shock delivered by the coronavirus pandemic gave manufacturers much less money and time to adaptconsultancy ihs markit forecasts that global vehicle production will not match 2019 levels again until 2023 automakers will have produced 20 million fewer vehicles by 2023 than they could have built had output stayed at 2019 levelsonly the most agile with a darwinian spirit will survive said carlos tavares the peugeot sa chief who will lead the combined peugeot and fiat chrysler when that merger is completedthe pandemic also elevated the importance of china to the industrys future that countrys swift recovery from the pandemic amplified the gravitational pull of its huge market on automotive investment despite antichina rhetoric from us and european politicianschinas drive to reduce dependence on petroleum is compelling automakers to shift investment toward battery electric and hybrid vehicles and recenter design and engineering activities to chinese cities from traditional hubs in nagoya wolfsburg and detroit tesla said it will establish a design and research center in chinadaimler ag chief executive ola kaellenius put it bluntly in october we need to look at our production footprint and where it makes sense shift our production he said during a video call last year we sold around 700000 passenger cars in china the next biggest market is the us with between 320000 and 330000 cars