SAE Books: Mobility for All with Christopher Borroni-Bird

March 3, 2026

Sebastian Blanco

Sustainable and Affordable Mobility for All: Putting the Heart Back into Technology (SAE International)

Christopher Borroni-Bird knows his perspective on mobility isn’t typical. He has worked at Qualcomm Technologies and before that at DaimlerChrysler and as director of advanced technology vehicle concepts at General Motors R&D. While at GM in the early 2000s, Borroni-Bird worked with a team that adapted then-promising hydrogen fuel-cell technology for passenger vehicles into a skateboard layout with batteries under the seats and in-wheel electric motors. Their work became the GM AUTOnomy skateboard chassis concept in 2002 and, later, the GM Hy-Wire concept.

Borroni-Bird’s book, Sustainable and Affordable Mobility for All: Putting the Heart Back into Technology, published last year by SAE International, is another example of his re-evaluation of what mobility will look like in the future. The book tackles critical issues like economic development, environmental sustainability, and universal access. SAE Media spoke with Borroni-Bird. Our conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

How did your long experience in the automotive design and engineering space inform the topics you chose to write about?

I remember the optimism when EVs were being developed because they were seen as freeing us from our energy and environmental issues, while also allowing automotive engineers and designers more freedom to control functionality and form. Recently, with the increased use of EVs, some of the dark sides – mining metals and the impact on water scarcity, water pollution, child labor, etc. – got me thinking about how the auto industry might be headed in the wrong direction. I started thinking more about the dark side of connectivity and autonomy, as well.

Your book is about creating “sustainable and affordable” mobility for more people. What do you see as the main tenets that the industry needs to consider to make that a reality?

I realized that advanced technology was making vehicles increasingly expensive to purchase, repair and insure, and that vehicle affordability was becoming a bigger issue, outpacing median household income growth. My book tries to answer two questions: how to make vehicles more sustainable for the wealthy 10%, who can afford to buy a new car, and how to make mobility more affordable for the remaining 90%, who cannot. The solution involves leveraging autonomy, connectivity and electrification to enable mobility-as-a-service and vehicle right-sizing. For example, can technical and operational solutions developed for robotaxis allow people to avoid buying a vehicle in the first place, or allow them to buy a smaller vehicle for daily use but have convenient access to renting larger vehicles (with autonomous pickup and dropoff, insurance/cleaning/maintenance/refueling taken care of)? Or, can geo-fenced 'robopods' allow suburban residents easy access to nearby public transit hubs so that poorer or disabled people don't have to walk 1-2 miles to access public transport networks?

Where do we stand on right-sized mobility compared to where you thought we might be when you first started thinking about this trend?

We are going the wrong way, because as more people buy bigger vehicles, it makes it more likely for others to feel the need to buy them, in order to feel safe. Road fatalities are rising in the U.S. because collisions are more likely to be fatal as vehicle height and mass increase, making them more dangerous to people walking, cycling or in small cars. A 2000 full-size pickup truck is now considered mid-size, and a 2026 pickup truck can have a 0-60 time equivalent to a sports car from 2000.

I believe that the trends in urban last-mile goods delivery and ride-hailing will lead to more fleet purchases and to a more rational approach to vehicle right-sizing based on cost-per-mile economics and utility in crowded environments, rather than the traditional automotive messaging of horsepower and size.

What can automotive engineers learn from reading your book that they might not come across in their daily work?

When focusing on developing-world solutions, it is essential that they are affordable, useful, and reliable. It’s that simple. As solar power drops in price and improves in performance (just as has happened with batteries), I expect to see more solar-powered, lightweight EVs (think tuktuks or golf carts). They use energy so efficiently (100 Wh/mile), that a solar-powered roof can provide 100 miles (161 km) of range in many parts of the sunny world. As cities in Europe question the need for cars in their centers, this could introduce lightweight vehicles that don't have to meet all crash, speed and performance requirements and so could be made from a much wider variety of materials (recycled plastics, agricultural byproducts). They could be built in local microfactories, creating high-quality design, development, and manufacturing jobs. A rethinking of the vehicle like this is a challenge to the traditional auto industry, but companies could become valuable partners if they decide to work with cities, licensing or supplying the skateboard platform at an attractive price, due to the economies of scale, while allowing local microfactories to customize the coach to local needs and materials.

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