Congress Conversations supplement - S5

EV charging rollout gets federal attention
There also exist some potential bumps in the road leading
to a pervasive electrification of our country's cars and
trucks. One area that's still an open question is the public
charging infrastructure - not only in town centers and
along interstates, but also in densely populated cities,
where most potential EV owners live in apartments or
condos and for whom home-charging is not an option.
Level 3 and 4 charging stations are expensive, and, presently,
it's uncertain when public charging stations could
achieve the utilization rates needed to be a profitable
business, according to recent PwC analysis. President
Joe Biden's plans for the electrification of transportation
includes deploying 500,000 new public charging stations
by 2030, and tax credits, rebates and grants for both
homeowners and businesses can also help incentivize
EV-charging investments. That's a good start, and it resembles
the support that has successfully ramped up renewable
power generation over the last decade. Expanding
such incentives will likely become increasingly important
as both public and private sectors ensure that EV charging
infrastructure and EV adoption grow at the same pace.
Customer touchpoints expanding
The industry is also facing a sea change in customer experience.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S.
automotive industry has been learning from a sudden and
substantial shift to online interaction with consumers. This
shift opens paths to helping improve the consumer experience,
and is stimulating the development of a whole new
ecosystem encompassing automakers, retailers and consumers
alike. This shift is poised to accelerate. Automakers
will likely increasingly be tethered to customers through
cloud-based services such as remote software updates
and increasing leveraging of AI for predictive maintenance,
for example. Just consider a PwC survey that found that
32% of executives of industrial products companies have
already realized value when using their cloud transformation
to innovate new products and services.
The pandemic, which accelerated e-commerce, could
also have accelerated how automakers not only sell but,
more important, how they serve customers after-sales.
Panelists delved into how we may be entering an era
when the dealership model may not be preferable for
buyers accustomed to - and preferring - online everything.
Many industrial products companies are building
e-commerce platforms in a bid to help increase online
sales and after-sales products and services, according to
a recent PwC report. A PwC survey of global automotive
COOs found that, of all changes in B2B and B2C customer
needs, nearly half (46%) of respondents agreed that the
" greater use of digital channels " will likely have the greatest
impact on their business over the next two years. For
the automotive ecosystem, the potential ramifications of
e-commerce platforms are enormous - especially for
how it can disrupt traditional distribution and dealership
models.
Competing with Silicon Valley for talent
As the industry pursues the vehicles of the future, they'll
also need to shape their workforces - through both
upskilling of existing workers and recruitment of others.
Automakers are scrambling to enlist electronic and software
engineers, smart-factory managers, automation
specialists, for example. As one panelist put it: We're all
competing for the same software engineer. Drawing such
talent into the industry's fold - and that may include probaseball-style
scouting of high-schoolers - could possibly
become as important as coping with shortages of cobalt,
steel or aluminum. Companies which continue hybrid
working environments may help lure some prospects to
sign on with them.
More automotive partnerships likely
Panelists all agreed about how big the EV pivot will be.
So big, in fact, no one company could likely afford to go it
alone. Indeed, the auto industry has invested handsomely
into EV and AV development. Looking ahead over the next
decade, that investment will likely spiral into the trillions.
Sharing the investment through partnerships, then, will
be crucial. We should expect more OEM-supplier partnerships
but also more partnerships between OEMs. The
industry should also partner with other stakeholders to
help build out the nation's public EV-charging infrastructure.
And, in some cases, collaboration will be purchased
- through strategic acquisitions - especially to secure
necessary supplies such as batteries.
Clearly, it's an exciting time to be in the automotive industry.
Yet, if we are to realize the ambitions of electrification
of transportation and the societal benefits it promises, all
stakeholders - including auto OEMs and their suppliers,
consumers, power utilities and governments - should be
more than simply " all-in " . They'll need to forge far tighter
industry links. They'll need to be all-in together.
CONGRESS CONVERSATIONS * 5

https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/industrial-products/industrial-insights/electric-vehicles-charging-infrastructure.html https://www.pwc.com/us/en/tech-effect/cloud/cloud-business-survey.html https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/industrial-products/library/automotive-deals-insights.html https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/industrial-products/library/manufacturing-e-commerce.html https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/industrial-manufacturing/coo-pulse-survey.html

Congress Conversations supplement

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