The world’s car manufacturers suspected that electric car production can face drastic reductions due to a supply chain crisis. Leading automobile business owners are warning about the looming problems at the Financial Times’ “Future of the Car Summit”.
Supply chain crisis
The current supply chain situation is not satisfactory. In some cases, the crisis is alarming and can create long-term obstacles in electric vehicle production. They also warned that this crisis will also prevent achieving EV targets. But the demand for electric vehicles is emerging. In this situation, the shortage of EV manufacturing materials will create a huge crisis without any doubt. For example, materials such as lithium are now facing limited supply worldwide. But it is mandatory in battery production. So, electric carmakers will not be able to keep pace with the increasing demand for electric vehicles.
Leaders’ opinion
VW’s Herbet Diess explained the future rollout of EVs. Mr. Diess claimed, “Many people are now, I think, a bit over-optimistic. We need the energy, we need the charging networks, we need the infrastructure, for sure, we need the cars, but we also need the batteries and the raw materials.”
The billionaire businessman Elon Musk said about the shortages of valuable raw materials. The company is considering buying a mining company to overcome the situation. Mr. Mask said, “There are some raw material constraints that we see coming, in lithium production, probably in about three years, and in cathode production.”
Stellantis CEO, Carlos Tavares stated, “The speed at which everybody is now building manufacturing capacities for batteries is possibly on the edge to be able to support the fast-changing markets in which we are operating”. He then added, “Everybody is going to pour EV vehicles on the market. So what’s next?”