ELECTRIC CARS AND REVOLUTIONS

ACT I

The upheaval in the automobile sector will be unprecedentedly radical, as fierce as the transition from the steam engine to the internal combustion engine, it is predicted. And not everyone will gain from the change !!!

When we think that only a few years ago we thought of oil-powered cars. But Dieselgate passed like a hurricane, razing our old certainties and the whole environment opened up other perspectives, including the most anticipated: the electric car.

The whole environment ?

Reduce greenhouse gas emissions and clean the air locally ?

A name of “ecological car” which has already been controversial since its (re)birth....

A truism: the only truly ecological car is the one that doesn't exist !

But which capital has not announced with great fanfare its desire to ban thermal engines from cities:

Paris, Madrid, Oslo, Athens to achieve by 2030 more than 30% for the market share of hybrid or electric vehicles.

Economic revolution

Predictions to be taken seriously as the automotive industry is about to face a big bang!

In any case, it is a radical upheaval that is expected for both manufacturers and users.

When we know that from the first link, manufacturers will have to change their production chains and put billions of euros on the table even though there is uncertainty over the choice of investment:

100% electric, hybrid, plug-in hybrid ?

No one knows yet.

Prudence requires at PSA we have chosen "a multi-energy platform strategy which allows industrial investments to be amortized" reveals Christian Chapelle, responsible for the development of traction chains for the PSA group.

The other manufacturers are following suit, except Renault and Tesla, but at what cost ?

The Renault-Nissan Alliance did not hesitate to invest 4 billion euros. But so many changes underway:

1° For engines, this activity employed 112,000 employees in 2015 spread across 126 factories in Europe.

If the market moves towards hybrid, it will be good news for automotive employment, because manufacturing this type of model requires 50% more time than for a thermal vehicle,” comments Laurent Petizon, director at AlixPartners. But if it's the other way around...

2° The employee’s profile. The zero-emission vehicle requires more qualifications in electronics and "soft" than in mechanics...

3°The margins will decrease the cost structure of the electric vehicle being higher than for thermal vehicles..

Hence savings plans to be planned for groups like Daimler: 4 billion.

Equipment manufacturers in the automotive world of tomorrow will have to quickly get up to speed:

so experts from the financial services company UBS dismantled piece by piece a Chevrolet Bolt from General Motors, sold in Europe under the name Opel Ampera-e.

Result: the Korean LG contributed more than 50% to the content of the vehicle with its battery and a myriad of key modules. Traditional equipment manufacturers, such as Delphi or Bosch, only account for 28%. So a turn to take eminently for some…

Oil and tankers will also have to change their strategy if the projections of the International Energy Agency (IEA) come true:

nearly 450 million electric cars would be on the roads by 2035 (battery and plug-in hybrids combined).

A drop of 4 million barrels per day in global oil consumption which does not seem dramatic compared to the 55 million barrels per day for the automobile industry.

In addition, the fleet of "classic" cars in emerging countries should continue to increase, without counting that of buses and trucks for air and maritime transport needs...

And it is up to oil companies to stay on track with the development of greener alternative fuels (bio and gas) and to prepare for technological change.

What they are already doing since the battery manufacturer Saft was bought by Total which

will install charging stations. To Shell for having taken over the Dutch electric charging specialist NewMotion at the head of 30,000 private points and 50,000 public points in Europe.

Mining companies specializing in cobalt, lithium, nickel or graphite present in batteries are big winners. Just like copper producers

Battery manufacturers have everything to gain.

Moreover, in battery chemistry, the Asians Panasonic, LG Chem, Samsung, CATL and others have acquired a decisive lead.

However, accumulators (10,000 euros on average) today represent half the cost of manufacturing an electric vehicle and more than a third of its final price !!!

Aside from Mercedes, the others source their supplies from Asia before assembling the packs in their factories.

A dependence on Asia is worrying for Brussels, which would consider setting up an “Airbus of automobile batteries” in Europe.

Tesla did not wait to install its "Boeing" in Nevada...

As for mechanics, they will have to pass authorizations issued by a training organization.

In the case of the hybrid, two approvals will be required to master the new technology.

Midas, Speedy, Norauto and others will also see around 20% of traditional interventions disappear but these networks with the largest resources are already very focused on electronics.

To be continued....



Carl Delsey for DayNewsWorld