Some 410,000 German jobs are potentially at risk over the next 10 years in the switch to electric vehicles.
This is according to daily German newspaper Handelsblatt, which cites figures from the government’s National Platform for the Future of Mobility (NPM) report. The report found that in the production of the powertrain alone, up to 88,000 jobs could be lost.
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The reason for the substantial losses lies in the simplicity of the electric motor. An internal combustion engine (ICE) is composed of at least 1,200 parts, whiles an electric motor has around 200.
Chairman of the NPM steering group, Henning Kagermann, said the production of electric vehicles alone is not enough to keep industry employment at its current level. “In order for Germany to remain strong as an automotive production location and to provide employment, important value-added networks for the drive technology of the future such as batteries, power electronics, fuel cells must be maintained or built as completely as possible in Germany and its European environment.”
Chief executive of German metalworker’s union IG Metall has called for strategic personnel planning for companies to minimise industry job losses. He also suggested new regional qualification centres in which companies, employment agencies and training providers work together.
The report assumes that 10 million electric vehicles will be on German roads by 2030, with the fleet increasing to 16.7m by 2035.
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By GlobalDataHowever the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) said the projections are unrealistic. “The assumption that up to 410,000 jobs could be lost in the coming years is based on an unrealistic extreme scenario,” said Kurt-Christian Scheel, managing director of VDA.
