Change can be exciting or nerve-shredding, depending on how someone perceives its consequences. For those wholly and madly in love with internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, the electrification of the automotive industry is a death knell, being chimed in Pied Piper fashion by tech companies and politicians.
Or it’s an outcome of necessary innovation to prevent environmental apocalypse. Sure, ICEs, American pony cars of the 60s and 70s, in particular, are much beloved cultural icons; however, times change, culture changes, and those vehicles are now relics of the past like the fossil fuels they run on.
Asking someone what they think of these changes is essentially administering a cultural Rorschach test.
But regardless of how someone feels about the automotive industry’s crossover to electrification – billions upon billions of dollars are being poured into this transformation – nothing will stop it.
In short, car manufacturing is never going to be the same again.
Production Is A-Changin’
Whether electric vehicles (EVs) are produced in retrofitted ICE plants or many EV-related production facilities are being built across the southern and midwestern states in the near future, their production will be vastly different from ICEs.
For starters, EVs have fewer moving parts to assemble.
Electric engines don’t generate as much friction as gas-powered ones – goodbye engine oil! (Does anyone actually enjoy changing their oil?) The fluids EV owners will have to keep an eye on are brake fluid, windshield washing fluid, and coolant. Transmission fluid will also go the way of the Dodo— Ditto for fuel injectors, exhaust systems, and starters.
All these components vanishing from automotive production means less labor will be required to manufacture each vehicle, significantly reducing each vehicle’s production costs.
The Basics of EV Production.
The majority of EVs are designed and, therefore, built around their battery packs.
The immense weight of these battery packs gives these vehicle’s chassis their center of gravity while adding structural integrity and strength. As EV production ramps up in the coming years, battery development is expected to become more cost-effective, leading to even cheaper overall production costs. It will also see allegedly vast increases in EV driving range.
However, it’s worth noting that until EV charging networks are as widespread, user-friendly, and cheaper than gas stations are currently – many consumers will likely remain reluctant to adopt an EV. It also doesn’t help that the average new EV is currently priced at around $60,000 while the average American earns less than that in a year.
There’s no doubt that EVs will become cheaper and more efficient to produce in the future, but those advancements are not here yet. It will be interesting to see what happens between now and then.