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2021 was a very busy year and I believe a turning point in the EV Automotive Industry. What should you take away about this year? Here is my personal top 10 Highlights in the Automotive Business for 2021:

1-Tesla Domination

It is a no brainer: Tesla is the most valuable automaker by far and end of October 2021, Tesla stock market (TSLA.O) has even been valued beyond $1 trillion USD. This is more than the combined value of Toyota, Volkswagen, Daimler, Ford and GM all together.

This does not mean that Tesla is currently making more money than the traditional OEMs but at least it means that the general public believes more in Tesla technologies (Battery, eMotor but also Autonomous capacity and infotainment) and the capacity to shape the future than the traditional players. This is a strong sign of the general trend in the eMobility adoption.

2- Asia Leadership in Battery Production

In 2021, the complete Top 10 EV Battery Manufacturers is Asiatic (China, Korea, Japan). It is composed by CATL (32% of the market), LG (21.5%), Panasonic (14.7%), BYD (6.9%), Samsung SDI (5.4%), SK Innovation (5.1%), CALB (2.7%), AESC (2.0%), Guoxuan (2.0%) and PEVE (1.3%). There is today no western company that can even enter this top 10 by far.

In addition to the Battery cell production, China is very advanced in Battery and EV Technology in general. So far, China is the main winner of this shift towards eMobility. Can Europe come back rapidly enough? As of December 2021, about 400 GWh of Gigafactory capacity are already planned in Germany (Tesla counting for 100 GWh already). If companies like Northvolt are ramping up, it is still important to remember that a lot these European gigafactories are somehow linked to Asia (SVOLT, CATL, Farasis…).

3- Chip shortage

The cost of the Electronics on modern cars is in 2021 about 40%! Chips and semiconductors are absolutely critical for a lot of functions. Some are used for the infotainment and the multiple screens and digital equipments, but some are also necessary for the safety or simply the control of the PowerTrain of a modern car (would it be IC Engine or EV by the way).

Without entering the details, the COVID / lockdown crisis has not helped to improve the availability of the already tight-production of semi-conductors. This results in 2021 in a massive shortage for chips for the Automotive Industry, the chip producers favouring the electronics (smart phone, computer, etc.) sector.

The chip shortage is very severe and has obliged several OEMs to stop some production lines (and in Automotive a car not produced = loss of money). Some specialised finance consulting companies estimate this crisis to cost $210 billion in 2021 in lost revenues to the auto industry… and that does not seem to be totally solved for 2022.

4- Battery and EV Recall Cost

Recall of Vehicles is relatively common in the Automotive Industry for a lot of possible reasons. Of course, it is never a good news and it always costs some money to car manufacturers. Nevertheless, recent EV recalls in 2021 have turned to another level. Early this year, both GM and Hyundai have to proceed to a massive recall. In particular, Hyundai have been very often on top of the news for the recall of all its production of the Hyundai Kona (around 70,000 units).

This Recall has several consequences:

(1) the massive cost. It was said to be $900 million USD that Hyundai has to absorb (backing a part to their cell suppliers LG)

(2) the bad image for the brands but also for the EV and Battery technology in general with anti-EV militants all relaying around Battery Fire-risk

(3) the technology challenge and the evident lack of data to help Engineers easily identify the technical problems (see some possible explanations here). Despite several attempts to flash the BMS, the only solution for Hyundai is to completely replace the full Battery pack of all their KONA

(4) this results in a “psychosis” at car manufacturers to have to recall Battery packs and probably will influence the way Battery packs will be designed in the future (see the section Safety Technologies in the Battery Show Report)

5- Supercars moving to full Electric

Folgore is the future EV announced by Maserati

So far, Tesla was the only rookie in this new business, but 2021 has seen multiple new players with quick raise of their stock market value (RIVIAN) and/or their sales (LUCID).

Another striking News this year was the association between Bugatti and RIMAC. This news had a largely media coverage generating a lot of advertisement for both brands benefiting of the fan database of the others.

I put this announcement in my top 2021 list because it is very symbolic and important. Indeed, one of the last haven of IC Engines was the High Performance engines and Supercars. But with Bugatti associating with RIMAC, Maserati presenting more details about their 1st full EV (“Folgore”). Even Ferrari announced this year during the presentation of 2020 Ferrari Financial Results that they will get their 1st fully Electric Supercar by 2025. Similarly, Lamborghini announced a Full Electric car by 2030.

6- Race towards Autonomous EV

“Autonomous vehicle” has been around for quite some years now. But 2021 shows some key insights. If you follow ADAS topics, you may recall Elon Musk saying that any car relying on LiDAR is “doomed” (Tesla using visual recognition instead).

Chinese OEMs have been going into the total opposite direction. NIO uses 1 LiDAR. Early this year, Xpeng announced adding a second LiDAR to its EV model P5. And the race among the Chinese Tech cars is accelerating with Great Wall Motor launching a new Sedan at the Guangzhou Auto Show with 4 (FOUR!) LiDARs (their headline being “If you have less than four, shut up!”). Rumors even says that Neta S is even targeting 6 (yes! you read that correctly!)

If this race for the high-tech ADAS seems crazy and not justified to you, keep in mind another important milestone in 2021: Mercedes became the world’s 1st OEM to get Level 3 Autonomous driving approved. What is this? Basically Tesla AutoPilot is Level 2 and relatively limited. The Mercedes Level 3 called Drive Pilot is able to take over driving at speed of up to 60km/h. This means that the system can drive for you in heavy, congested traffic. The car can accelerate, brake, and change lanes on her own. This option will be available in about 13,000 km of German Autobahn and tests are already on-going in USA and in China. This Level 3 should be included in the Mercedes S-Class and the EQS.

7- China EVs entering the European Market

I do not know how much you pay attention to Automotive show and cars that are presented there, but this year at the IAA in Munich, it was very clear that China has started to enter the European market and in particular in Germany. If you imagine Chinese cars like dummy plastic cheap cars, you must move from the 2000s and open your eyes to the real competition that is going to happen in Europe soon.
First, if you believe Germans are bounded to German brands, I would like to mention that the IONIQ 5 (so, a Korean car) has won the German Car of the year (GCOTY) award. (The GCOTY price is attributed by a panel of 20 German motoring journalists testing all the vehicles in the competition).

Among the Chinese cars to watch out in Europe, we can mention the ORA Cat directly in competition with the VW ID.3:

The VW ID.3 has about 350 km of range and costs around 32,000€
The ORA Cat hss about 400 km of range and costs 25,000€

Another brand competiting in Germany and presenting at the IAA 2021 was WEY with a new Plug-in Hybrid SUV called Coffee 0 and offering 150 km electric range when running on the Battery.

In 2021, we have also seen the introduction of NIO and BYD in the Norwegian market. Of course, do not forget that Chinese stakeholders / investors are also behind brands such as Polestar (Geely) or even Daimler (The Chinese investor Li Shufu holds the largest equity stake in Daimler through Tenaciou3 Prospect Investment Limited).

8- Electric Motorbikes, Trucks and more…

Battery and Electrification are exploding among passenger cars. But in 2021, we have also seen a certain among of announcements in other transport segments. All the major OEMs have already announced electric Commercial Vehicles including for long haul…

Scania, who has announced already its commitment to clean mobility in 2020, is currently testing 64-tonne electric truck on the road (with Wibax). For the moment, the test is running over a short distance (80 km one way) but Scania is of course targeting long haul in the future
ln September, Daimler has presented its full electric roadmap including a partnership with CATL to supply batteries for eActros LongHaul truck starting 2024
VOLVO has announced a complete HDD range of electric Trucks to start production in 2022 and to be fully commercialised in 2023

More surprisingly, in 2021 we have also see a lot of announcements among the Motorbike brands, For example, earlier this year, Ducati announced that they will supply the MotoE World Cup from the 2023 season. Even a brand such as Kawasaki have announced to go all-electric by 2035.

9- From 400V to 800V

One of the main trend we have seen in 2021 is the canalisation of 800V with plenty of platform announcing 800V similarly to the Porsche Taycan. I will not detail the technical reason in this article but it is clear that with more and more brands adopting 800V, this is a major current trend. In addition of the Porsche Taycan who was the first commercial EV (in 2020) to introduce 800V, in 2021, we have seen:

The LUCID air (900V)
The Hyundai IONIQ 5 (E-GMP Platform, 800V)
The BYD Dolphin (800V e-platform 3.0)
The Geely Zeekr 001 (SEA platform 800V)
The up-coming GMC HUMMER (using Ultium Batteries with 400/800V)

10 - LFP Cathodes

Last year, NMC chemistry seemed to become the preferential option for most of western carmakers. LFP (cf OROVEL Card EV28) on the contrary was very popular in China mainly because of its cost but also because only Chinese Battery manufacturers were allowed to produce and to sell them.

Nevertheless, in 2021, we have seen many western OEMs switching to LFP chemistry for various reasons (scarce raw materials such as nickel, unpopularity of Cobalt, lower price, more stable chemistry giving better protection against thermal runaway, etc.).

During the last years, the main problem of the LFP chemistry was its relatively low energy density compared to NMC. Nevertheless, recently this gap has been much narrowed at the pack level when using cell-to-pack approach (EV Card EV29), especially coupled with the Blade Cells (the packaging allowing a better integration and so a higher energy density at the pack level) which might become one of the 2022 trend. This is the approach used by BYD which seems to also seduce several other OEMs who now want to use the BYD Blade cells. Toyota already announced to want to use this technology in their new EV for China.

Very early in February, Elon Musk said that Tesla was switching back to LFP. Shortly after this, during the Power Day, Volkswagen also presented their strategy in which large volume-production vehicles were focusing on LFP chemistry. Similarly, NIO is now also announcing to switch to LFP.

Watch out in 2022

In 2022, I personally look forward (3rd January 2022) to see the details of the new Mercedes EQXX already announcing 1000km range and a consumption under 10 kW/100 km!

I am also waiting for the Ford F-150 Lightning platform details, even if for the moment my only question is about the very limited range for such a large Battery pack (what a none-sense from an ecologic and a CO2 point of view!)

Of course, the Tesla Berlin Gigafactory is one of the major event of 2022 and for sure I cannot wait to see the 4680 Cells in a Body-to-Cell packaging inside the next Tesla generation.

And you? What are your major take away in 2021? What are you looking for in 2022?

Automotive 2021 Top10 News