There's a lot to worry about in this industry that's for sure, but the spectre that has loomed over the repair industry for many years is that of autonomous cars that wouldn't crash. It seemed like it was just around the corner back in 2009 as the then editor of Paint & Panel (I think it was Will Tuck) frets on your behalf in his editorial.
The moving feast that is the changes in technology seem to be happening at a rate faster than most would like.
Reading information on the European car manufacturers’ web sites, one can’t help but believe that there will be a crashless car on our roads in the not too distant future.
And with that will be the challenge of how autobody repairers adapt to this new approach to driver safety technology.
While this technology is designed to keep vehicle occupants safer when they are driving down the highway, or just heading to the shop, what happens to the car when the occupants are not there?
When someone in an older model vehicle without the bells and whistles to stop small end-to-end prangs backs into the new breed of hi-tech machine in a car park, or when a wayward shopping trolley has an attack of the wobbly wheel and hits a parked car and damages the paintwork?
Or what happens when one of the “backyard repairers” fixes one of these new cars and can’t correctly reconnect part, or all, of these safety gizmos?
The crashless car will not seen the end of the autobody repair shop, but over time it will result in a quantum shift in the way repairers operate.
We are already seeing a decline on the number of autobody repair shops operating, and those numbers are expected to continue to decline – especially with the advent of all this technology aimed at reducing crashes, or at least reducing the severity of them.
But we will see more highly trained repair shops technicians using the latest of equipment to meet the ever-increasing demands of manufacturers.
We will also need to see a greater level of cooperation between all parties involved with the repair industry to ensure fair and reasonable deals can be struck.
It is an interesting time ahead. The ball may be a little way down the pitch still, but it would not be wise to take your eye of it.