Our annual webinar introducing the next phase of ICDP’s research plans starting on 1st April 2026.

ICDP members are invited to submit any suggestions for the new programme starting on 1st April 2026. Please send your ideas to projectofffice@icdp.net by 21st November 2025. Below please see our initial thoughts.

This webinar is available to all - ICDP members and non members, please contact projectoffice@icdp.net if you would like to attend and a Zoom invite will be sent to you.

In this webinar we will examine how BEVs currently affect aftersales, comparing real-world developments with ICDP’s earlier forecasts. We will look again at the key variables and update them to reflect current trends in BEV sales and car parc shares across the major European markets.

The webinar will also assess how BEVs influence workshop activities - such as maintenance, repairs, and tyres - and compare field observations with our initial assumptions. We'll also explore customer attitudes toward BEV ownership and usage, and how these behaviors shape aftersales services.

Finally, we will draw on dealer experiences in high-BEV-adoption countries such as Norway, and we will consider whether these can forecast developments in other European markets.

If you would like to attend this webinar, please send an email to projectoffice@icdp.net and a Zoom invite will be sent to you.

ICDP consumer research has consistently shown over recent years that the majority of new car buyers would ideally like an omni-channel journey that allows them to flexibly combine some steps online with others face to face in a dealership.  Their experience however is that a seamless journey of this type is rarely available.  In this webinar we will start to explore some of the barriers to offering that seamless journey, with input from Patrick Fuller of Sophus3, a specialist consultant in automotive e-commerce who have run benchmarking of digital journeys for many OEMs for almost as long as such journeys have been possible.  We will look in particular at three topics.  Firstly,  the interplay between the resources offered by OEM brands and their dealers, and those offered (and widely used) by third party platforms, secondly trends in the use of the online tools, and finally how the effectiveness of the digital customer journey is being affected by measures to improve consumer privacy and the increasing popularity of AI tools with consumers.

If you would like to join this webinar, please send an email to projectoffice@icdp.net and a Zoom invite will eb sent to you.

Digital services revenues: to what extent is the emergence of the smart, digital and connected car delivering additional revenue, and who gains the greatest share of value?  

Software-Defined, Connected, AI-enabled, and Internet-of-Things car …so far we have explored what these buzzwords around SDV mean both in theory and practice, and highlighted some examples. And we have highlighted how this ongoing and tentative emergence of the connected car as an Internet of Things (IoT) device has led to many carmakers and consultancies considering the car as a source of many new revenue streams for digital services, via subscription and pay as you go services, mirroring the growing functionality and utility of smartphones. Is this assumption bearing out so far, where is connectivity adding revenue, and who is getting that revenue?

In this webinar we’ll examine the outcome of interviews with several businesses that are using connectivity to add value to customers, from home energy solutions that involve the IoT car (V2G) made by third parties such as energy companies, through to carmakers who have been building strategies to ‘own’ revenue streams from various customer offerings, and we’ll also consider the exploratory nature of this explosion of experiments in functionality as a field that is attracting Fintech and Greentech startups, with all the acceptance of risk, reward and pivoting of strategy which that implies. The Software Defined Vehicle, or car as ‘smart device’, is in early stages of evolution, but is the auto distribution sector ready to make the best of what it offers to their customers? Will customers use functionalities offered, are they paying for them, and realistically, so far, what revenues can arise from delivering greater customer value?  

If you would like to attend, please send an email to projectoffice@icdp.net

We invite you to join us as we reveal the latest edition of our European Top50 Dealer Groups ranking.  Published annually for over a decade in conjunction with Automotive News Europe, the new ranking will show the ongoing impact of the recent wave of merger and acquisition activity amongst some of the large groups in individual European markets, as well as their growing international presence.  We will analyse all the big moves, both up and down the table, and will discuss the underlying drivers of consolidation as well as the profile of the deals that have happened.  Finally, we will set this year’s changes against their historical perspective, and we will also update our projection of the future dealer group landscape through to 2030.

This webinar will be essential viewing for all who follow the fortunes of Europe’s largest dealer groups.  It is free to attend, and open to all.  Please contact Jane at projectoffice@icdp.net to register.

European dealer networks continue to be a key topic, with challenges such as changes to distribution formats and strategies, new entrants, and overall profitability shaking things up, and previous research indicating that current networks are more dense than consumer behaviour would require. In this webinar we will explore the latest trends and results from the 2025 edition of the European Car Distribution Handbook, the only pan-European source of figures on the size and shape of European dealer networks. We will look at how 50 established brand and new entrant new entrant networks have evolved over the past year on both the sales and aftersales side, as well as longer-term trends on networks and distribution arrangements.

This open webinar will run for approximately 45 minutes, with opportunity for participants to ask questions, and is open to both  ICDP members and non-members alike. To book your place now, please contact the project office at projectoffice@icdp.net.