#003 Peter Gresch über den Status quo der Elektromobilität (EN)

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Zukunft Auto.

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Mein Name ist Peter Gresch.

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Ich nehme sie mit in die automobile Mobilität

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von heute und morgen.

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Hallo zusammen.

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Willkommen zu meinem mittlerweile vierten Podcast.

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Dem ich etwas dem Thema Elektromobilität widmen möchte, ohne Anspruch auf

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Vollständigkeit. Denn, dieses Thema wird heiß diskutiert und sicherleich auch in der Zukunft

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noch sehr heiß diskutiert werden. Und es gibt sehr sehr viele Aspekte, die

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man in ungefähr zehn Minuten gar nicht alle erschöpfen kann.

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Da ich sehr viele Kollegen und Freunde im Ausland habe, werde ich diesen Podcast

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auch in englisch besprechen.

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Ich hoffe ihr kommt trotzdem sehr gut mit.

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So let's talk about electromobility and why it is one of the maybe hottest

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discussion topics in the recent years up to now and maybe in the future.

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First of all, no matter from which angle

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you come, whether this is business, whether this is technology,

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jobs, revenue, pricing, market,

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it always feels a little bit like a hot potato.

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So why is that a hot potato?

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Why does it feel so hot and touch so hot?

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Because, first of all, we're undergoing in the automotive industry

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with the electrification of powertrains and the implementation of battery.

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Electric is a major, major change of the industry,

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the most major change probably over the last hundred and more than 100 years.

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Second, especially in Germany, where where automotive centric country,

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we have some of the largest automotive manufacturers in Germany.

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And also among the top five suppliers was Bosch, Continental,

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Tesco and of so, yes, the largest suppliers, many, many jobs in our country

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directly or indirectly depend on the automotive industry.

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Will the owners almost the owners and the inheritors of diesel and gasoline engines.

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Now it is also very efficient drive trains with the new technologies

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and now we're threatened by technologies coming from from other countries. Yes.

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So battery electric vehicles

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have the advantage that they don't pollute.

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I have zero emissions and that's why it's been increasing

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quite a bit, because we all want to reduce CO2 targets.

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We want to do it as an individual.

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Our governments want to do it the whole world in one way or the other,

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and the automotive industry or passenger cars or transportation when we include

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trucks and other transportation, is one of the major polluters of CO2.

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However, when we take a more deeper look into it and talk about, well,

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two wheels.

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So when I get the materials from transport demand to fill them

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into, let's say, batteries and cells and then get them into cars,

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and I compare it with gasoline, diesel engines.

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We also have to say this only makes sense when to allow trucks.

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And we do this with regenerative energies.

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So looking only at the electric vehicle

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from the perspective of this will save the planet.

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It's maybe a little bit too short and we also rely on materials, rare materials.

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Some are more common, some are less common.

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But on a typical 30 kilowatt battery of passenger

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car of today with an NMC content of 111

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so even nickel mangum manganese

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and cobalt 12 kilogram

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manganese, 12 kilogram of cobalt

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and 11 nickel and then 4.5 lithium.

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Today's batteries have more like an 811, so meaning

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nickel is the most prevalent dominating material.

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All of those materials are typically not found in Germany or Europe.

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They are found in China, they are found in Australia,

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they are found in third world countries like Africa and South America.

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So in order to cope with these technologies and put them into production,

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we rely on a lot of things for not having in Europe

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and in Germany on top of it, when we talk about the battery

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as the most expensive and the most dominant thing

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in an electric vehicle, the technology is also not coming from Europe.

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It comes from Asia, it comes from China, comes China, Japan, Korea.

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That's where the largest battery manufacturers are.

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That's where the largest cell producers are.

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That's where the materials are found and so on.

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So we own less of the supply chain

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and depend much more on foreign technologies.

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And especially nowadays, with all the political and economic things

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happening around us, this becomes more and more complicated

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if you make it in Germany, you make it every year.

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That's what I often tell colleagues when we're talking automotive industry.

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There's high expectations coming with it on CO2 reduction.

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When we're talking

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electrified powertrains, maybe they are sometimes a bit too high.

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So what comes with it from a market perspective?

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When we look at the market, when we look at the passenger

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car market, the global passenger car market, we produced

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90 million passenger cars in 2019 before COVID.

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In 2000 time, about 83 million passenger cars were sold,

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21 million out of this, 80 in China.

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And out of these 21

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million, 3 million were battery electric or plug in hybrid vehicles.

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So quite an significant amount of cars the market in China is to subsidize.

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But however it's gotten a mature electric vehicle market

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with a lot of new products coming off from local Chinese OEMs

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as well as from the foreign carmakers like the Germans or the Americans.

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The total battery electric and plug in hybrid electric

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market was 6.2 million cars, all of the 83.

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So the other half was mostly sold in Europe and U.S.

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and in Europe. Germany has become by cars.

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The number and largest market

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by percentage is Norway, as it has been over the last years,

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with more than 50% of all new registered vehicles being battery electric.

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But Norway obviously is a small country.

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The market or the global market is in the northern hemisphere,

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not in Africa, not in South America, not in India and so on.

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Why is that? The case? First of all,

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those vehicles are

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still, to a large extent, expensive and subsidize

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a second and foremost, I need an electrical charging

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infrastructure and this charging industrial structure is not built easily.

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I have to implement it.

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I need to know where the current moves, where it comes from.

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So there's a lot of points happening.

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So what do I need?

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All I need a different, uh, infrastructure.

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I need a charging infrastructure when we see a look at Europe

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except Great Britain.

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So European Union, 55% of the charging stations

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as of today are in the Netherlands and Germany.

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We have a passenger car goes by

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ten times over the last five years in Europe,

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but the charging infrastructure has only grown by 2.5.

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The problem with the charging infrastructure is that,

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first of all, on the 160,000 in Europe,

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out of those 60,000 currently

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in Germany, many of them are not, you know, so

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south of the Alps and east of the German border,

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the number of charging stations goes significantly down.

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It's much, much lower.

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And that's why the market is also lower because without insufficient

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charging infrastructure, it's not so much fun to drive.

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So when people ask me,

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should I buy in battery electric or plug in hybrid vehicle,

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I tell them, Well, you can the absolute good cars are fun to drive.

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Yeah, but you should be able to charge at home

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or at your working place, or maybe both, you know,

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because these are the most prevalent situations.

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The car stays overnight or for a longer period of time,

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and you can charge in most cases and then the rest and the decision

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making depends a little bit on how often do you go long distances

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and how old do you want to do it and how much time do you have and so on.

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So by the end of the day, battery, electric vehicles and plug in hybrid

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only because I know my car's like every other car.

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We need to reach.

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The 5055 goal of European Union in 2030,

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which means I go below the 60 grams CO2 per kilometer,

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so significantly below the 95 we have as a target.

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As of today, we need about 14,000 charging stations

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being built per week in York of subscription County

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where we are at about 2000 per week, so 12,000

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per week plus minus off the target.

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And you can always argue in the numbers and this is the number of charging

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stations, right or wrong, there's different statistics and different

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opinions.

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But by the end of the day, we have to see if we don't have sufficient

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charging infrastructure, it will be difficult

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to get the electric vehicle market where we want to have it.

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The other thing, we're not only talking cars, we're talking transportation.

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We're talking

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transportation in cities.

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We're talking long distance transportation.

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We're talking electrified trucks,

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which also need a lot of charging points,

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probably about 300,000 in 2000, 30 and

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almost €8 billion invest per year in the infrastructure.

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And also

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the high current has to come in the political discussion.

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We often don't do what many of us wish that we have discussions, more technology

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open to go into open means Japan, Korea, for example,

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investing a lot into fuel cell vehicles, into hydrogen solutions.

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The Chinese government is also investing and looking at it.

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We have discussions on strategic fuels with synthetic fuels.

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They can almost PSC or too neutral as with battery electric vehicles.

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What is the difference on those fuels?

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They're not generated by oil, but they are generated out of gas, out of

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carbon dioxide or from regenerative energies

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that's also disadvantaged, is coming with them

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with how to produce them and they do find materials and so on.

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So there's not this one size fits all solution,

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but there's more alternatives than just going battery electric.

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However, it's an increasing market.

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It's still a subsidized market.

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It's subsidized with now it sells in Europe, in Germany.

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And it will be interesting once we take those subsidies away per car,

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what will happen with the market and what will happen with the demand.

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So to come up with maybe some more realistic predictions

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and some more realistic discussions would be very good.

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It's not mandatory, but it would be great.

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And with that, I'd like to finish my podcast.

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Number four

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and we'll run a bunch of interviews and comments in the next couple

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of podcasts around this topic of electromobility open for feedback.

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Thank you very much.