Article in cooperation with Newsweek Polska
Klaudia Saferna spoke on behalf of our organisation for Newsweek Polska and together with the magazine’s editors, laid out a vision of the future of the electromobility market for its readers. You can read the article below.
Electric cars: the future of the market or a dead-end development path?
European manufacturers are fighting to maintain their dominant position in a market, threatened by competition from the USA and China. Unexpectedly, Brussels comes to their rescue by postponing the implementation of the EURO7 standard and announcing a re-examination of the legitimacy of the ban on the sale of combustion cars. Does this mean a turn towards traditional drives?
After a period of optimism about electric motoring, caution seems to be growing among both customers and some manufacturers. Europe is starting to move away from subsidies, which is translating into a slowdown in sales of electrics.There is also a noticeable change in the approach of the manufacturers themselves – Mercedes, for one, has backed away from its plan to phase out the production of internal combustion vehicles by 2030 and has started to invest in the development of traditional powertrains.Volkswagen Group is also loosening its earlier pledges to move away from internal combustion engines altogether.
Electric cars are a technology that will be developed. However, without political pressure, manufacturers will be able to improve it in a more organic way – says Klaudia Saferna, Chief Operating Officer at Key Solutions Polska. The era of the ‘electric boom’ brought huge changes to the automotive industry, which not everyone is aware of. It was not just a short episode after which we will return to mechanical motoring, assures Ms Saferna. The use of electric propulsion forced the development of on-board software and greatly accelerated the evolution of engineering in this area. Software increased the responsiveness of individual car systems, but also allowed the implementation of functions such as ADAS/AD, intelligent lighting or infotainment systems. These areas have developed precisely because of the implementation of the battery system and will continue to evolve, regardless of which type of powertrain finds greater acceptance with consumers. Software engineers will be in high demand in the automotive market. – adds Ms Saferna.
The development of electric technology has also created entirely new corporations that would have had no chance of breaking through in an era of already mature combustion technology.Electrification has reset the market and, the expert assures us, the new companies will not disappear. They will continue to develop the technology they know best and, over time, organically capture an increasing share of the market.
Automotive seems to be entering an era of technological equilibrium, in which market success will be determined by the development of proprietary solutions. Working within a Brussels-imposed deadline, most manufacturers have been forced to take shortcuts. The lack of time pressure will result in the improvement of product quality (as the data show, failure rate is currently a huge issue for electric cars) and the testing of new solutions, which could not be implemented in such a short space of time.
From an engineering point of view, we will be able to focus our efforts on quality, and this in turn will result in a better technology for the car user – Klaudia Saferna adds with a smile.
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