20 months delivery time is the new normally
According to a new study, the availability of new cars is likely to continue to be disrupted in the coming years, regardless of the model or drive system. This is counterproductive, especially for the ramp-up of e-mobility. What to do?
Henning Busse, Marcel Sommer (Producer) 07.07.2022
These are uncertain times we live in. Wars on the doorstep and pandemics show how fragile the network of economic relationships worldwide is. Even if Chancellor Scholz warns against turning back globalization, that should probably be a lesson from the past few months. Because the delivery difficulties in all areas lead to a shortage economy that unsettles many.
Delivery bottlenecks persist
And this is unlikely to change any time soon, according to the findings of the market observers from AlixPartners in a new study. Vehicle sales should actually recover again in 2022, but now the experts have calculated a drop in sales from 80.3 to 78.9 million models in 2022. Leading car manufacturers in China, Japan and Europe in particular are struggling with the effects of the current disruptions. “Last year, the automotive industry recovered from the effects of the pandemic, also thanks to government support programs,” says Fabian Piontek, Managing Director at AlixPartners. “Due to the war in the Ukraine, manufacturers and suppliers have had to face a disruption for the second time in a very short time, which provoked significant failures and is unpredictable in terms of the course.”
For car buyers, this means they have to live longer than expected with the shortage economy. So far, it has been assumed that the market will recover by 2023 at the latest. According to AlixPartners, nothing will come of it. Because the shortage of chips will continue until at least 2024, despite higher production, since the demand for electric cars will increase by a factor of 10 compared to combustion vehicles. And since the pendulum on the market is shifting in the direction of e-mobility (all new models in the picture gallery), the capacities are unlikely to be sufficient to serve the entire needs of the automotive industry.
Vehicle prices will increase
In other words: the state of emergency on the vehicle market is creating situations that were unthinkable just a few years ago. Because at the moment you have to be prepared for delivery times of up to 20 months for both e-cars and plug-in hybrids. This is shown by a current evaluation of the online new car exchange carwow.de. What’s more, the delivery bottlenecks also ensure that the costs for battery production are increasing again, contrary to the trend of recent years – which all in all means that the vehicle prices for e-cars and plug-in hybrids initially only know the upward direction . The federal government is well advised to reconsider funding for the new mobility if it does not want to jeopardize rapid market penetration.
In any case, it remains exciting to see how the technical development and the associated price development of e-cars will continue. If the prices rise too much, this should become a boomerang for the manufacturers. Alix Partners is convinced that car manufacturers must therefore take care to secure raw materials for electric vehicle production. One way to counteract this trend would be LFP batteries, which could be expected to boost low- and mid-priced vehicles in the coming years. Compared to conventional NMC batteries, these are significantly cheaper and have the advantage that they are not dependent on rare earths from economically and politically unstable regions. However, according to market observers from AlixPartners, LFP batteries are associated with higher weight for the e-cars and a shorter range. People could possibly live with that if it could solve the problem of the scarcity economy.
Source: Auto-motor-sport
