The aim of this interview is to understand the current situation and trends in the automotive section in areas such as production, distribution and the end market for buyers and users.
To begin with and to orient ourselves, what’s the current situation in the sector? What’s the impact of very important issues like the pandemic, a shortage of materials and the rise in energy costs?
Economic uncertainty and the microchip crisis were the two main factors which determined the direction of the automotive industry in 2021. Both the rhythm of registrations, with a slight growth of 1%, and vehicle production, with a decrease of 7.5%, have been affected by these factors, which have not permitted recovery in 2021.
The shortage of materials, especially microchips, has caused a crisis in vehicle production around the world. We hope that this temporary situation will improve in 2022 but we don’t expect that the available supply of components will completely adjust to the demand until at least the end of the year or the beginning of 2023. As such, we don’t expect to return to pre-pandemic levels, either in sales or manufacture, until next year.
PRODUCTION
Of the different motorisation technologies available nowadays, which do you think are the most promising?
There’s no single answer to that question. All the new vehicles which are being placed on the market nowadays are a response to the social demands of today and the future. We’re undergoing a transformation towards new mobility, with the aim and commitment of achieving decarbonisation of the park in 2050 and this means that the importance of technologies such as battery electric cars, plug-in or non plug-in hybrid cars, and hydrogen-powered cars is going to increase exponentially. But work is also being done on zero emission combustion engines and on ecofuel. The goal is clear, but technology is going to allow us to achieve it through different approaches, responding to what users need for their mobility.
There’s an increasingly clear transition to electric vehicles. In this regard, what are the barriers for the transition from combustion engines to electric ones?
Currently, the electrified vehicle faces two main barriers: autonomy and price.
The automotive industry is completely committed to electromobility and is making a wider selection of this kind of vehicles available to buyers. In the last decade we’ve gone from having 12 electrified models (plug-in hybrids and pure electric) to more than 180 models on sale today. There’s a wide selection, but the level of demand falls short. In the last year, sales of these vehicles only reached 7% of the market total. Therefore, it’s necessary to continue stimulating demand through purchase assistance plans, like MOVES III.
Likewise, the development of public access charging infrastructure must continue to be bolstered, a necessary condition in order to make the electrified vehicle a first purchase choice for users. We only have 12,700 public charging points in Spain. If we want to reach the goals for reducing emissions, it’s necessary to multiply the current infrastructure by 30 to reach 340,000 charging points by 2030, as proposed by ANFAC in their installation maps for charging points, with scheduled targets at a regional and national level. But it’s not just a question of money. Administrative and bureaucratic obstacles which complicate installation have to be removed. For this, ANFAC has created a document with 16 measures where we analyse these obstacles and suggest how to address them.
Thinking about electric vehicles, what are the barriers to installing charging points nowadays: materials, investment, space…?
As I’ve already mentioned, establishing an assistance plan such as MOVES III is a necessary requirement, and likewise, reducing the administrative obstacles for installing charging points is very important. Therefore, at ANFAC we welcome the Royal Decree Law passed last December which will facilitate installation processes with the goal of boosting this release, aiming for 100,000 charging points in 2023. Now is the time to accelerate their release and for there to be greater agility in approving these projects in order to create a public recharging infrastructure in Spanish territory with enough capillarity, quantity and quality.
MARKET
What are the implications of going from being a “car manufacturer” to “mobility provider”?
It means placing the citizen at the centre again and listening to their mobility demands. The centre is no longer the vehicle, but rather the use made of it. And car manufacturers can’t remain outside this revolution. The citizen is the one defining how mobility will be in the future and the services and trends which will shape it. The automotive industry is ready to give efficient, sustainable, smart solutions which can respond to these requirements. Not surprisingly, a large part of the shared mobility applications and developments which have been launched in cities have an automotive manufacturer behind them and brands are opening up their offer to other products and services. Beyond the final result which reaches the market, this revolution also implies a change in the professional profiles accommodated by the sector, expanding the part of software, big data, artificial intelligence and robotics, in order to advance even faster.
What impact will autonomous cars have on new ways of consumption such as pay-per-minute, shared mobility and other emerging ways?
Autonomous cars are going to revolutionise mobility but the extent and the timeframe they will do this in is yet to be defined. This will have a very positive impact on road safety, efficiency and probably also on better mobility for dependants and better traffic management, especially in congested settings like cities. Spain is still working on a legislative framework which will allow their use on our roads. As a first step towards achieving this goal, in December a modification of the Traffic Law was published which includes an enabling framework for developing the regulations for the circulation of automated vehicles at a national level.
At ANFAC, we see an opportunity here to become an innovation hub. If we’re able to create the conditions to attract innovation projects and investment in this early development, we have the ability to lead these as yet emerging initiatives where there’s still room for us.
Big Data. The manufacturer as a data generator. What are manufacturers doing in this respect? How will it affect the core of their business? How can they compete with the big tech companies (GAFA) in this area?
Big Data is a booming market and from the sector it’s already being studied how this could be implemented to improve quality in driving vehicles. Today, there are manufacturers which ensure that the use of Big Data in vehicles can contribute both to road safety as well as offering many advantages to the driver in real time due to the large amount of data generated by the different sensors which are nowadays installed in the vehicles.
In addition, this tool is closely linked to the development of autonomous cars since, thanks to these two factors, data generation will be greater and manufacturers will be able to better understand their customers. Big Data plays a crucial role in helping the car industry to the next level, especially when the data collected is combined with artificial intelligence (AI). For this purpose, data collected from traffic will feed autonomous learning algorithms which will subsequently be used to further improve automated driving functions based on AI.
The sector is adapted to the changes and possibilities which these new technologies offer us. In the end, the core of our industry will always be the same, given that our objective is to offer safe, sustainable mobility, always in agreement with our consumers.
The big tech companies undoubtedly have much more experience in the field of data handling, but we believe that it’s not a competition, but rather about committing to and investing in innovation and collaboration, in order to improve mobility.
FUTURE
If we were to meet again in 5 years’ time, how do you imagine the sector would be compared to at present?
It’s very difficult to determine because it’s such a large transformation and technology moves so fast that predictions change from one day to the next almost. I do hope that the market recovery has been completed and that there’s a consolidation of electrification and other technologies to reduce emissions in the Spanish vehicle fleet, that there’s already a strong, mature market. I also hope that the Spanish automotive industry continues to be an industry standard in Europe and around the world, completely aligned with the transformation of mobility and, like now, generating wealth and quality employment for Spain. For this we need measures, their effective application and the support of all the administrations to complete this. It’s our goal to maintain the automotive industry’s competitiveness and to continue being an economic driver and source of employment in Spain. New mobility will become a reality if it’s a common goal.
Interview with Mr. José López-Tafall Bascuñana, Managing Director of ANFAC
Wonderful~