By Dr Peter Harrop, Chairman, IDTechEx
The market for hybrid and pure electric cars homologated as such is set to
be $188 billion in 2025 according to IDTechEx analysis.
However, the world has changed for cars overall and now big is not always
beautiful for mainstream car manufacture. EVs will reflect this. Although Sergio
Marchionne boss of Fiat Chrysler famously said six million units a year is
needed for a car maker to be profitable, his head of research Pietro Perlo left
to successfully make small pure electric vehicles in a start-up. The car company
that has shocked the industry by proving it wrong about the viability of pure
electric cars is Tesla in the USA - a start up with better technology.
Trading up is easier than trading down
At the other side of the world, Donald Wu in Taiwan is global leader in
little single-seat mobility vehicles for the disabled having sold nearly one
million of them. He said he would be better able to make electric cars than the
big car companies and he is proving it by making and selling several home grown
models. Also in Taiwan sit the 100 pure electric cars that giant Toyota made
before giving up in frustration at their poor cost-performance. Executives from
small Taiwanese manufacturers are now driving these cars and they figure they
can solve the problems.
Bucking bronco
Small companies are sometimes better at riding the bucking bronco of
accelerating technical change particularly because, paradoxically, the
megatrends in cars make them simpler. These include conventional to hybrid to
pure electric and mechanical parts experiencing simplification then elimination.
Electrics and electronics are merging into transmission or wheel or at least
into the motor and battery housing - it does not stop there.
Structural electronics we see in the antennas and heaters in the windshield
are transmogrifying into the supercapacitor trunk lid. Another version of
structural electronics is the in-mold electronics in a shaped sheet of plastic
starting to replace big wired components in dashboards and overhead control
consoles and expected to replace all that dangling copper wiring. See the new
IDTechEx report, Structural Electronics 2015-2025.
Value chain upended
Big is beautiful is now only a half truth in Japan. Suzuki and Daihatsu,
dwarfed by the big boys, make most of the nicely profitable tiny "kei" cars for
Japan and India. Little Mazda led the electrification of conventional cars with
its alternator/ supercapacitor energy harvesting and its unique stop-start.
Mitsubishi, small as a car maker though part of a big group, innovates strongly
and its latest pure electric car is doing well. Little Subaru outsells
Volkswagen in the USA. Indeed, the Economist notes that the small Japanese motor
companies make bigger percentage profits than the big ones. Who will make all
those millions of e-rickshaws, e-tuk tuks and MicroEV "cars" needed in the
Philippines, Indonesia and India? You guessed it. The car value chain has been
upended. Nowadays, it is often the case that different people make the car and
they use different parts.
Much of the car industry may be going the way of huge factories making
steel or telephone exchanges. They were replaced by small ones.
For more see the new IDTechEx report, Future Technology for Hybrid and Pure
Electric Cars 2015-2025" www.idtechex.com/evcars and remember. The only
dinosaurs that survived were the ones that became silly little birds - with
better technology.
About IDTechEx
IDTechEx guides your strategic business decisions through its Research and
Events services, helping you profit from emerging technologies.
We provide independent research, business intelligence and advice to
companies across the value chain based on our core research activities and
methodologies providing data sought by business leaders, strategists and
emerging technology scouts to aid their business decisions.
IDTechEx Events provide an analytical, commercial outlook, taking into
account market requirements, competitive technologies and development roadmaps.
Attendees are presented with the full, diverse range of technologies; but the
main thrust is always on end-user needs and commercialization strategies.
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