“While COVID-19 has had a negative impact on vehicle markets around the world, sales of electric vehicles (xEVs) have grown strongly…”, mentioned in E-Mobility Index 2021. Roland Berger has recently issued its annual session report on the general overview of the global automotive industry. The assessment methods, vehicle performance evolution of the countries, and progress in the European commission standards and CO2 compliance are the key highlights. It has primarily focused on the leading automotive nations: Germany, France, Italy, South Korea, Japan, China, and the United States. A short walk-through of the report is presented in this article.
Tech, market overview of prime automotive countries
Roland Berger’s Index 2021 has smoothly shown the statistical on the three key parameters: technology, market, and industry for its objective, which is presented in this section.
Talking about the “technology” pointer, South Korea has emerged as the top-notch nation followed by China. The auto OEMs of these countries have always continued to increase the technological aspects of their EV vehicles and thus, a better go price-performance ratio. Range, efficiency, and safety are the focal points for Chinese manufacturers. In the increase of efficiency and charging power ratings, Germany improved its position from last year to rank 3, followed by Japan where OEMs are mainly addressing the PHEVs for their market, and hence efficiency and its charging technology is not of much concern.
Compared to last year, France is rated 5th on the list. Low focus on the top speed, a small range of its vehicles, and less battery capacity are some of the rationales for losing its 4th position this year. Now considering the last nation, though the US is introducing its market with the electrified SUVs but also the reason that slows down the range/performance graph in this indicator. However, US OEMs have shaped their market in range, charging power ratings, and good driving performance.
The second pointer is “industry” followed by “market”. With a 13% increase in the total production of the EV/PHEV category and being the largest battery cell producer across the globe, China is the winner in this category. A worldwide share of 70% of its local production has turned the way China into a leading industry. The second position is bagged by the US this year which was held by Germany earlier. The overall vehicle production but lesser cell production capacity made Germany shifted down. A decline in the xEVs production has resulted in a significant downfall for Japan’s rating this year and holds the 5th position. With the slow speed of extensions of the EV model in Italy, it is last in the race in this indicator.
The drastic impact of COVID -19 is not been hidden from anyone and so the automotive industry as well. The 2020 sale records of the EV industry show Germany, France, Italy, and South Korea were blessed with the numbers last year. While Japan had to face a curt drop in the market graph that shrunk its xEVs sale by 28% in the nation and to just 0.7% in the international market. On the other hand the world’s EV market leader, China also had to pass by the difficult waves. But under market parameter, the E-mobility index 2021 observes a worldwide growth of 5.7% in the Chinese xEVs market.
But, COVID-19 and European countries
A display of 200% growth in the xEVs sales, European countries had a blessed year and led Germany and Italy to the top where demand went up from 112,000 vehicles to 400,000 annually. Several stimulus initiations were led by the government of these countries to boost the falling trends. Although the lockdown in the first two quarters led the worldwide market down by 30% but European automotive nations had a contrary picture. A better dashboard is given below:
Possible developments and implications in the climate concern
According to this report, an environmental concern relating to EU emission standards and CO2 compliance may find three major challenges by the OEMs. Firstly, there is a plan by EU Commission to tighten the CO2 limits in the new models by 2030 and with a target limiting up to 47.5 g/km. Secondly, the actual consumption rate of PHEV is high in the real world due to the greater use of its engines than being charged-run. But there is the question of collecting the data against Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation.
Thirdly, there is now a steep interest in lifecycle assessment (LCA) of CO2 emissions i.e. emission during production and recycling because currently, Europe catches the CO2 limits based on tailpipe emissions even ignoring the annual mileage of the vehicle. But now there has been seen a shift from legislators towards a more holistic LCA of emissions.
The senior partner of Roland Berger, Dr. Wolfgang Bernhart said, “Europe wants to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. E-mobility is a central pillar of this, which has experienced an enormous boost in recent months. Together with political leaders, our OEMs and automotive suppliers can lay the foundations today so that we will still be a leader in mobility solutions in 20 years. In other parts of the world, the target for e-mobility has long been clear and European economies cannot afford to lag behind in this field.”
All in all
The report by Roland Berger has a clear dimension about the seven major automotive giants (Germany, France, Italy, South Korea, Japan, China, and the United States) on the bars of market-performance summary, covid-19 knocks, and the transition to LCA for several OEMs. Over the last decades, India has emerged out at the better positing in the worldwide ranking of e-mobility. But on a simple note of conclusion, a simple question to the Indian leaders, “How do we see ourselves on the long route towards xEVs?”.
