Monday, John McElroy gave a very interesting presentation to our membership about Electric Vehicles and his predictions for the future of the automotive industry.
Tom described this as the "most exciting time in the Automotive Industry" explaining that there are fewer barriers to entry, that allow startups to get to the stock market much faster and bypassed the traditional markets.
There are plenty of EV start-ups and commercial EVs are on the way. He predicts that commercial vehicles will be at the forefront of electric vehicles.
In the coming years, the internal combustion engine will be banned. Car companies will no longer be allowed to sell new cars with an internal combustion engine. This is the key reason that automakers are coming out with so many electric vehicles. However, this shift to electric vehicles means that a lot of jobs are under threat when the internal combustion engine goes away.
Some of the challenges that EV companies face are that there are not enough charging stations available and it takes a long time to charge to 80%, as well as range anxiety from consumers asking "How far can I go?" and the distance differs in colder temperatures.
The other challenge is the chip shortage happening around the world, the average car contains over 1,000 chips. And the problem isn't as simple as building more chip manufacturing plants, on average it takes $10 billion dollars to build one fab and one foundry, both are needed to create chips.
In conclusion, Tom says that this is a time that we haven't seen since over 100 years ago. And they're exciting and going to challenge automakers by having to develop new supply chains that they're unfamiliar with.