This part: >Now we have Silicon Valley challenging Detroit's leadership in the auto industry's most promising growth areas — autonomous cars, connected vehicle

This part: >Now we have Silicon Valley challenging Detroit's leadership in the auto industry's most promising growth areas — autonomous cars, connected vehicles, eco-friendly powertrains made me snigger. "Detroit's leadership" - and this applies to many of the overseas subsidiaries of Detroit's companies also - has been mainly in rent-seeking behaviour for years. Since 1970's the only trend they have kept up with is the move to SUVs, missing just about everything else: downsized engines, turbocharging, diesel, reliability engineering, interior design and of course the electric car. I had a little glimpse through my job at the inside workings of one of the "Big Three" US carmakers. I got the impression that far too few people working there actually, you know, liked cars. The employees were generic dispassionate corporate managers, engineers, accountants etc. They really needed an injection of car enthusiasts.