According to a recent study conducted by AlixPartners, $255 billion will be spent on a total of 207 electric vehicle models by 2022. Another $61 billion is ready to be spent on autonomous vehicles. The survey also found that consumers are willing to pay $2,300 extra for driverless functionality – compared with current industry costs of around $22,900. In general, the global auto market will grow at an annual rate of 2.4 percent through 2025, in comparison to worldwide GDP growth of 3.3 percent during that stretch.
On the bright side, full battery-electric vehicles are projected to reach about 20 percent of the U.S. market, 30 percent of the European market, and 35 percent of the Chinese market by 2030. Additionally, 22.5 percent of Americans say they’re “likely” to purchase a plug-in electric vehicle as their next car.
However, the firm also sees the onslaught of electric-vehicle launches potentially leading to the need for high sales incentives in order to sell them. This issue could create depressed used-vehicle values and, in turn, a continuing decrease in new vehicle sales.
It also finds a downside to eventual consumer adoption of autonomous vehicles, predicting that “robotaxis,” or self-driving vehicles sold to companies such as Uber or Lyft at lower profit margins than retail —could cannibalize sales in the U.S. to the tune of 1.6 million vehicles by 2030.
This result piggybacks the firm’s findings showing that return on capital employed (ROCE) for automakers reached a three-year low in 2017, while suppliers saw a five-year low. It also finds that automotive-related commodity costs are now at six-year highs — up 70 percent or $884 per vehicle since 2015.
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