Don’t believe the lie there’s a consensus.
One thing supporters of electrification often cite is that unnamed, essentially faceless “experts” all agree that in short order only electric cars will be available. However, a new worldwide survey of industry experts commissioned by ABB Robotics and Automotive Manufacturing Solutions found just 59% believe the shift to just making EVs as mandated by different governments isn’t achievable. So much for that narrative.
Learn why used car prices aren’t really on the rise here.
Just 28% of experts surveyed said they thought the current EV mandate deadlines were achievable. That’s not great news for anyone hoping the government can scare the auto industry into compliance. Even worse, 18% of respondents said they think the current targets will never be met.
Not everyone seemed to agree about why meeting government mandates by 2030 or 2035 isn’t possible. However, the laundry list cited in the press release mentions concerns over establishing a new battery supply chain, raw material shortages, lack of proper infrastructure, the sheer amount of capital investment required, and the inability to increase grid capacity to meet demand.
Funny enough, we’ve highlighted such concerns and been reassured by critics we just don’t know what we’re talking about. Perhaps we should just defer to “the experts.”
Revolutionizing an entire industry, especially one as massive and complex as automotive, is a colossal undertaking. While some people place a high level of faith on technology to make such a thing happen, it seems quite a few experts who know the limits of technological innovation have their share of doubts.
Another school of thought with these mandates is that if the government threatens private industry enough, executives and others will find a way to make things happen. This assumption treats titans of industry as if they were small children who won’t clean their room unless mommy gets scary. It’s an incredibly simplistic view of the auto industry and adult human behavior.
Finally, many EV advocates seem to have a loose or completely non-existent grasp on how long automotive adoption originally took. It wasn’t something that happened over the space of 10, 15, or even 20 years. Yet they think changing everything will take that little of time or less. After all, we have computers, so physical constraints no longer matter, or something.
Source: ABB
Images via Tesla, GM
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