But how complicated is it to restart the engines of theauto? The effects of the pandemic, starting with the difficulty in supplying the industry with the necessary chips, are combined with the gigantic transformation imposed by the transition to electricity. Without neglecting the impact that the logistics crisis has had on the just in time, the organization of work is impracticable if there is no certainty of supplies.
The trend of the index Euro Stoxx 600 Auto, +21% since the beginning of the year with a rebound in recent weeks, perfectly reflects the image of a sector that is facing the deepest industrial and technological transformation of the last decades. No one expects results in the short term, but the game is truly decisive, also to understand who, among the various protagonists, will be able to conquer (or maintain) the leadership in a key sector for innovation and employment.
ELECTRIC BATTERIES
As far as Europe is concerned, the first emergency concerns the batteries, the Achilles heel of the system, lagging far behind the Asian supremacy and the impetuous growth of Tesla. But it certainly cannot be said that the big names in the automotive industry have been idle in recent months. The announcement of the agreement between itvolt, founded by the Swedish entrepreneur Lars Carlstrom, and theABB for the advance planning of the gigafactory project to be built in the former Olivetti area of Scarmagno, near Ivrea, raises the number of initiatives announced on the electric battery front in Europe to over 50, including six promoted by the company alone Volkswagen before four o'clock Daimler. If all the projects are translated into reality, calculates Inno Energy, in 2030 in Europe there will be a production capacity of 640 Megawatts, enough to drive 13 million vehicles. More or less a third of the global availability of the sector, equal to 2.140 Megawatts, able to satisfy almost all the market demand.
THE CHIPS
But, alas, other emergencies are knocking at the door. The most serious in the immediate concerns the shortage of semiconductors which for Stellantis, said Ferdinando Uliano of the Fim Cisl with an eye to Melfi and Pomigliano, risks being more serious than the stops imposed by the lockdown in 2020. It is not surprising that, faced with the emergency of a sector which for the Italy, between direct and related employees, employs 1,5 million people (and represents 20% of GDP), the government, although short of capital, is thinking of a multi-year measure (one billion for each of the next three years) to support the transition to electricity, in line with what has been done by the EU partners.
RARE LANDS
However, these interventions alone will not be sufficient to eliminate a third, even more insidious bottleneck. If Europe moves, in fact, the others, China in the lead, do not stand still. In recent months, the strategic raw materials for the electric car have all recorded double (or even triple) digit increases. Applies to the Lithium, abundant in Australia and Chile, as well as for the cobalt in the Congo, while China keeps the access key to its productions tight graphite. The price increase is thus combined with the logistics problems that weigh on all manufacturers, including Volkswagen, which has started a policy of long-term agreements with manufacturers, but risks paying dearly for the gap with the Chinese. now close (Nio in the lead) to landing in Europe, or to Tesla itself, ready to bring into play the strategic weight of the USA.
Europe urgently needs to address this third structural obstacle: in 2030 the European car industry will consume, at current growth rates (30 million electric vehicles are expected), more lithium than its competitors, for a quantity greater than the current production world. Not only that: today China meets 80% of the demand from its industry, Europe depends exclusively on imports. Yet, it is not excluded that it may gain weight in the future lithium production in Europe. This is the goal of Australia's Volcan Energy which plans to extract lithium from the waters of the Upper Rhine and has already entered into an agreement with Renault for the exploitation of the raw material. The German deposit is one of the most important in the world, capable of supplying the precious mineral to build up to 400 million cars. The metal is found collected in molten form several kilometers below the surface in the Upper Rhine valley. Volcan Energy (a start-up also financed by German entrepreneurs) has already planned the construction of geothermal power plants for the extraction operations can supply the necessary energy, committing to an investment of around 1,7 billion euros. But, as always happens in Europe, the "nimby" opposition arose: the particular location of the field makes operations rather complicated and impacting from a geological point of view.
Another more politically sustainable way concerns the recycling of materials, which could cover 10-20% of the requirement. After massive investments, perhaps financed within the EU. These too, in addition to the queues of containers waiting in front of the ports (not to mention the threatened guerrilla warfare), are bottlenecks with which the big names, including Stellantis, will have to deal with in the age of the e-mobility revolution .
