The multitrillion-dollar global automotive industry is changing, but not the way you might expect. Here’s how that change is unfolding.

“Disruption” has become the buzzword of buzzwords in the transportation industry.

But the supposed disruption isn’t true disruption at all — it doesn’t fit into Clayton Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation, as explored in his book “The Innovator’s Dilemma.”

Nonetheless, automakers are actually disrupting themselves from within.

The “disruption within” isn’t about cheap, small, fast. It’s not about catching the industry off-balance and ill-prepared to respond. It is about big companies that have a lot of money recognizing that they can spend literally billions to attack a new business opportunity.