Cluster 2: Europe and us: EV & AV the same time
European countries and US are taking a balanced approach, pursuing both, or in some cases none of the technologies, simultaneously.
Having a closer look at the European countries and expected EV development, Italy’s readiness and outlook are the weakest of examined European nations and expected to be falling further behind, as neither EV nor AV are prioritized technologies for Italy, as for example demonstrated by the slowly expanding but still rather limited range and variety of Italian EVs7.
France competes with Germany for the pole position in Europe EV market. While both countries have their own strengths in the field of EV (Germany has a wider array of EV models and better range, while France has significantly more battery building capacities8), they are similar in terms of political support and societal willingness. This is for example demonstrated by France’s President E. Macron unveiling a €4 billion investment plan for the country’s transport sector modernization, German government’s commitment to building 15 million EVs (app. 40% of cars currently registered in France) and 1 million charging points by 20309, or 61% of French people being willing to buy an EV as their next car10.
Nonetheless, targets and a generally high pace in Europe are driven by the European Union, which passed a regulation only allowing 0-emission cars (mainly EV) being registered as new cars from 203511. This will force countries, like Italy to pick up momentum and motivate leading nations such as Germany or France to push hard, leading to a generally optimistic outlook for EV readiness and adoption.
As for AVs, the European Union is playing less of a driving role. Here national strengths and weaknesses will dictate the pace of initial development. As such, Italy with its limited political stability and inflated cost of AV technologies, is expected to make initially more moderate gains.
On the other hand, France, being the first nation in Europe to have a comprehensive legal framework for AV, intensified focus on AV related research and leading AV relevant cybersecurity capabilities is expected to progress better. This, however, is hampered to some extent, by the lack of local technology player in France, increasing the need for collaboration with international player, such as Waymo12.
Lastly, Germany shows very high AV innovation capabilities, many AV-related patents, and pioneering work in interaction of microprocessor systems, sensors, and actuators (e.g., Simulytic a Siemens AG venture for AV Simulation).13 Germany is also a role model in terms of industry partnerships and made great strides in licensing and legislation. This, however, is hampered by a relatively low willingness of society to adopt AV technologies and sufficient mobile coverage of its road network14.
Nonetheless, due the EU’s single market, close political collaboration, and cultural homogeneity, we believe all countries, while some earlier (e.g., Germany and France) and some later (e.g., Italy), will follow a similar AV adoption trajectory and progress in terms of readiness and adoption until 2030.
As for the United States, in 2021, President Biden set the target to make 50% of all new vehicles sold in 2030 zero-emissions vehicles. The same initiative also promotes the construction of 0,5 million charging stations for EVs and an investment of 2 trillion dollars in green infrastructure projects. Additionally, financial incentives for consumers as well as carmakers are planned15, leading us to believe EV readiness and adoption will experience further progress, if the current political course is maintained.
In terms of AV, the US is strong in areas of cloud computing, AI, and IoT, all crucial technologies for AVs. Furthermore, technologically advanced AV companies, of which the US has many (e.g., Waymo, Apple, Tesla, and GM) benefit from regulatory support, high capital investment, and widespread consumer acceptance16. Considering these points and the great technology advances the US have already made (Waymo is currently able to operate at Level 4 automation17), we see strong development in AV, sustaining the US leadership in this technology.
7: Bernhart W., Riederle, S., Hotz, T. et al. (2021)
8: Plank, W. (2021)
9: Schaal, S. (2022)
10: Alix, C. (2022)
11: Schaal, S. (2022)
12: Threlfall, R., Püstow, M., Ng, Philip et al. (2020)
13: Simulytic (2022)
14: Threlfall, R., Püstow, M., Ng, Philip et al. (2020)
15: The White House (2021)
16: Threlfall, R., Püstow, M., Ng, Philip et al. (2020)
17: Molla, R. (2021)