In 2021, the auto industry recovered from the corona shock. But some problems remain. The Ukraine war and the e-car boom are to blame.
Since the corona pandemic, the automotive industry worldwide has been struggling with problems, especially in the supply chains. According to a study by the management consultancy AlixPartners, they are likely to continue to exist in the coming years. Delivery bottlenecks, for example for chips, declining sales figures, rising raw material prices and long delivery times will continue to shape the car markets at least until 2024, according to the forecast. Specially at Electric Cars on the other hand, a strong boom is predicted.
While there were initially signs of recovery from the effects of the pandemic in 2021, a second disruption followed in early 2022 with the Ukraine war, which has since caused significant losses in the auto industry. Due to the current war situation, the analysts expect global sales figures to fall by 1,4 to 78,9 million vehicles compared to the previous year and a drop in sales of 238 billion euros. Vehicle production could only reach pre-pandemic levels again from 2024.
In Germany in particular, it is even predicted that sales figures will remain below the pre-corona level in the long term. For 2024, the study initially expects an increase in annual sales to 3,7 million units, but a decline to 3,2 to 3,5 million units and thus up to 500.000 vehicles below the pre-corona level is expected for the following years. The study cites a medium to long-term change as the reason for this persistently low level mobility behavior the population.
The authors, on the other hand, expect sales to continue to rise sharply, especially for e-cars. Last year, this doubled to 6,75 million units. Especially with regard to the ban on internal combustion engines decided by the EU Parliament, the analysts in the EU expect the market share of battery electric vehicles to increase to 2028 percent by 55 and to 2035 percent by 83. However, the share of e-vehicles worldwide will only increase to 2035 percent by 50.
Investments in e-vehicles will increase accordingly among suppliers and car manufacturers (OEM). These have already doubled in the past two years, and by 2026 an increase to over 500 billion dollars is expected. At the same time, OEMs are massively thinning out the range of models with combustion engines and hybrid drives. Between 2024 and 2028 alone, their number in Europe is likely to fall by a third.
Given the strong increasing demand for e-cars the forecast also foresees a continuing shortage of semiconductors until at least 2024. Accordingly, e-cars require ten times as many chips as cars with combustion engines, which is why the capacities will not be sufficient in the future either.
In addition, the Auto industry have to contend with rising raw material prices. Their increase will prevent battery costs from falling further, as they have in the past few years. The analysis therefore assumes an increasing spread of lithium iron phosphate batteries, which are cheaper than conventional NMC batteries and do without rare earths, albeit with disadvantages in terms of weight and range.