The so-called “dual revolution” – digital and ecological – has begun, and is having a direct impact on the automotive sector and the entire industry it encompasses. The process combines global international commitments with specific political choices at European level even ahead of national level. The overall global context and the instability caused by the Ukraine war have inevitably complicated an already very complex transition.
If electric is going to be the prevailing choice for vehicular mobility, it is going to be important to pay close attention to dependence on China, which is currently the key economy for many essential electric vehicle components. Then there is the issue of the natural resources needed to make these products (given the high volatility of all commodities, and not only energy), with the unavoidable implications this has in terms of the interdependence of global markets.
Also to be examined are the negative effects that switching to electric vehicles will have on jobs. Rather than as an automobile manufacturer, Italy is better placed to produce components for export; but even in that sense, some current trends such as near shoring are a concern for the national industrial system.
Scientific and technological research, a fundamental priority, must maintain the principles of technological neutrality and not focus solely on electric mobility. The government can steer major choices but, in the final analysis, it is going to be businesspersons who make the investments and take the risks, thereby preserving the capacity for accommodating continued change. We must therefore not trust overly in planning as such, particularly if it leads to rigidity and limits innovation and experimentation.
All the major economies are facing two simultaneous challenges: the reduction of harmful emissions and the problem of energy supply. The two concerns are closely linked and must be addressed together, not as contradictory issues; efficiency is the bottom line rather than any specific technical solution, electric or otherwise. Hybrid systems and new technologies are the key to a radical shift toward sustainability, but policy makers should avoid preordaining any single technology as the point of departure. The shared objective is decarbonization but, so far, no single answer has emerged to the question of how to achieve it. Indeed, diversification is indispensable to reconciling near- to medium-term and long-range needs.
From this standpoint, everyone agrees that the priority is to replace (or eliminate) the more pollution-prone vehicles still in circulation, of which there are many, especially at the lower end of the price scale. This will be hard to implement given the relatively high price of today’s electric vehicles. Furthermore, decisive to environmental footprint measurement is a “life-cycle assessment” that puts electric vehicles themselves in a very different light.
In any case, Italy must promote innovation on a broad spectrum that embraces technology, product and process. Indeed, necessary to keep in mind is the high value-added nature of the Italian services sector, more than manufacturing, which is losing ground even in the traditional automotive sector.
The energy “trilemma” approach at European level has been overly weighted towards the environment at the expense of the other two, i.e. security and supply. The climate package therefore needs to be reformulated in the interests of the technological neutrality of both established and developing technologies.
The challenge is even more complex when it comes to infrastructure, since every decision regarding vehicle technology (including industrial ones, from trucks to ships to freight trains) carries its share of implications for support grid construction and modernization. In a phase of diversification and uncertainty about whether one solution will prevail over others, it is very difficult to pursue a unidirectional infrastructure plan. In any case, close collaboration between government authorities and the business world, each with its separate role and responsibilities, is going to be decisive.