Study on electro mobility

Author: Marcus Schilling
Date: 19.03.2019

Plans of the car manufacturers

Exactly when the carmakers Audi, Daimler, Porsche and VW, who are all aiming to produce electric cars this year, are celebrating their key year, the state agency E-Mobil BW is providing a study on the development of electric mobility. At the same time, the uncertainty of employees in the drive technology sector is growing all the time.

Ambitious goals

The car manufacturer Porsche has it clearly in mind: By 2025, every second car that will be sold will have a pure electric drive or a plug-in hybrid drive. At Daimler, 25 percent of the cars sold this year will also be powered purely electrically. The VW group announced that no new combustion engines would be developed from 2026 on.

The pressure on car manufacturers continues to grow steadily. In Europe, the limit values for carbon dioxide emissions are becoming ever stricter. Anyone who fails to comply with the regulations will face heavy penalties. In addition, since the beginning of the year China has been demanding growing sales shares for e-cars.

Market objectives

However, it remains to be seen whether the plans of the carmakers will come true. The study also examines a moderate development and a progressive development of the framework conditions. In the progressive development, for example, battery costs shall be reduced enormously and the network of charging stations for electric cars shall reach a coverage of 75 percent. It could be assumed that by 2030 51 percent of all new cars in Europe will be electric cars. In contrast to the progressive development, a moderate development is estimated so that only about 15 percent of new cars sold will be electric cars.

According to a study carried out in 2015, it was still assumed that a vehicle with a combustion engine would have a considerable cost advantage of a total of 10,000 euros compared to an electric car. In the progressive development plan, however, an electric car is 1,000 euros more expensive than a battery-powered car. The reason for this is the ever more complex exhaust gas purification due to the stricter limit values and the ever more expensive combustion engines.

The study shows that almost eleven percent of employees subject to social security contributions are dependent on the automotive industry. A total of almost 470,000 employees can be allocated to the automotive cluster, which includes not only manufacturers and suppliers but also companies from the automotive industry. Around 121,000 employees work for the car manufacturers, 151,500 for the suppliers and 15,500 for the development service providers (figures for 2016).

According to the results, by 2030 between 20 and 45 percent of the jobs in drive technology in the southwest will be threatened by structural change. Last year, a study by the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (German Institut für Arbeitswirtschaft und Organisation, short IAO) came to the conclusion that every second job in drive technology for passenger cars throughout Germany could be affected by electro mobility by 2030.

It is no surprise that employees in this sector are increasingly concerned. Bosch employees at the Feuerbach location demonstrated last week because the production of components for diesel engines is not running at full capacity. Two years ago, there were conflicts at the Daimler plant in Untertürkheim because the employees demanded that components for electric cars should also be produced at this plant. The employees were successful and the demand was implemented. Further talks on new components at the plant shall follow this year.

Measures for change

The study calls for Baden-Württemberg to become the leading market and provider for sustainable mobility. In order to achieve this, companies, politicians, scientists and employees need to work together. In May 2017, the strategic dialogue between the automotive industry and Baden-Württemberg, initiated by the state government, was launched with this goal in mind. The project will run for seven years. The aim is to jointly discuss how change can be shaped and how innovations can be promoted. The study itself already proposes certain measures such as the expansion of the charging infrastructure, financial assistance, the promotion of new battery technologies and others.