How to Win the Unstoppable Electrification Race

While it is too early to place bets on the ultimate winners of the great vehicle electrification race, the best odds are on automakers and suppliers who embrace disruption and empower innovative engineering. 

The EV environment is creating countless opportunities, as revealed in Molex’s survey, Innovation in Automotive Electrification. Most automotive stakeholders polled believe the EV market is on the cusp of a major breakthrough, despite lingering challenges. 

What new strategies in tech, style and consumer features are major EV contenders adopting now to win the race to market share? The answers will re-shape the cars we drive and the industry that makes them.

Tesla’s rapid ascent kicked off a new era for the auto industry and challenged many long-held assumptions about car manufacturing and consumer demand. Today leading companies are making a complete about-face. The field is filling with many new players offering their own take on the EV concept.

We can read the future signs by the extent to which these players are committing resources to the electric market and placing their chips on design initiatives that will gain them competitive advantage.  

A decade ago, Korean carmakers Kia and Hyundai were known for their affordable models. Now, along with Hyundai’s daughter company Genesis, they have made the EV market a strategic pivot point. Designs such as the Ioniq, the EV6, and the Genesis GV60 advertise the fact they are electric with bold and dramatic profiles, challenging the expected form-factor grammar associated with modern vehicles.

This parallels other international developments. China moved with speed to attain dominance in the EV market, producing vehicles while building out the charging infrastructure. Despite higher interest rates and a slump in startup investment across the globe, the country continues to pour government capital into batteries, chips, and EVs.  

BMW recently shifted manufacturing of its electric Minis to China, even as EV production in Germany has nearly doubled. Volkswagen is moving $20.38 billion toward building electric vehicle batteries. 

These big moves will have a profound impact on the automotive ecosystem and will represent a reversal of fortune for many OEMs. Within a decade, the list of dominant automakers and tier 1 and 2 suppliers may look vastly different to what it is today. Companies that understand and adapt to market dynamics will flourish, while those that falter could disappear altogether. 

As the topology of the EV market comes into focus, companies are experimenting with new business models that can accelerate market adoption and profitability.  

To bolster charging networks, automakers are collaborating amongst themselves, forming partnerships with hotels and restaurants, and even reimagining traditional gas stations. Other approaches include Portable EV chargers and innovative services, such as SparkCharge’s on-demand EV charging network. The company’s latest Roadie V3 model is much larger, more powerful and faster, and boasts a 90 kW to 125 kW charging output that makes it suitable for truck fleets.

Onboard software-driven services are becoming more prevalent to enable capabilities that go beyond updating vehicle features and functionality. While BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen were among the first to try and reinvent themselves as tech companies, other automakers are following suit with plans to become more tech savvy.

In December 2021, Stellantis announced plans to embed AI-enabled software in 34 million vehicles across 14 brands as part of its transformation into a “sustainable mobility tech company.” In doing so, the world’s sixth-largest automaker aims to win over consumers with internet-based features and services, such as voice commands to activate navigation, electronic payments and online product orders. 

Days after the Stellantis announcement, Bosch, the largest car-parts supplier, increased its commitment to in-vehicle features with its information domain computer announcement. Bosch’s high-performance system is designed as the ultimate control unit for managing in-vehicle technology, encompassing in-car communication, in-car payment, video streaming and voice assistants.

A lingering shortage of semiconductors is currently slowing EV production across the globe. Even with the August passage of the CHIPS Act, which provides $52 billion in grants and subsidies for new American semiconductor fabrication plants, several obstacles still remain. Not only will the factories will take years to build, but many plan to produce advanced chips for consumer devices at sizes of 5nm or smaller, leaving automakers, who use 28nm chips, in the lurch unless they revamp their designs. Chip shortages are expected to persist, not only in the U.S., but in Europe and Asia. 

In fact, EV momentum is thought to exacerbate IC shortages, considering that a Ford Focus typically uses roughly 300 chips, whereas one of Ford’s new EVs can have up to 3,000. This is the result of consumer demand for additional safety features, as well as passenger comforts like seat adjustments, music and lights adjusted through electronic touchscreens or connected phone apps. 

These capabilities are delivered by electronic control units (ECUs) connected to a myriad of mini-computers running the length of the vehicle. However, a move to zonal architecture could change the equation, reducing the number of mini-computers and replacing them with a few more powerful units connected to a central CPU. 

The vast majority of respondents in the Molex survey said they believe zonal architecture represents the future for EVs. Reducing the number of chips needed would help ease the current constraints. 

While both new car models and new business models proliferate, the ultimate decider of the race is consumer preference. The EV platform is a switch to a different means of propulsion, but fierce competition is driving creative re-thinking in all aspects of the car-owning experience. 

Rivian is billed as the “electric adventure vehicle,” and is creating storage for gear like snowboards. Owners of the Ford F-150 Lightning can turn the front trunk into a cooler and be the envy of all tailgaters. Time will tell which carmakers emerge at the front of the EV pack. It will come down to those with the clearest vision and the most compelling combination of features that consumers want or have yet to dream of. 

Providing engineering and innovation in the automotive sector for more than 30 years, Molex continues to work with top automakers and suppliers to develop state-of-the-art engine controls, powertrain connectivity and ruggedized cables and connectors. The circle of collaboration is expanding here as well – to include the best tech companies.  For us, the race is on to improve delivery of the in-vehicle displays, user interfaces and infotainment features that will drive the sale of tomorrow’s cars.