The days of cheap and cheerful cars like the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla may be numbered as technology firms Google and Apple muscle into the auto industry and change the way people own and drive automobiles.
That is the warning from Ken Okuyama, high-end Japanese designer of the Ferrari F60 Enzo and Porsche Boxster, who says game-changing self-drive technology could threaten Japan's position as a major car producer.
"If they don't watch out, they risk becoming just suppliers to those (tech) companies," Okuyama said in an interview at his industrial design studio in Tokyo.