Vehicle electrification is both changing the automotive industry and revolutionizing the power electronics supply chain

There will no longer be a choice: either your next car or the one after will be electric. This means that everything related to the ICE is about to change in the automotive industry: the $2000B+ automotive industry has to reinvent itself in the next 13 years to replace the combustion engine, the pipes, the tank and related sensors with the batteries, BMS, the power modules, the multiple converters/inverters as well as the electric motors… and also the charging infrastructure.

The batteries, converters, and electric motors alone represent a $200B+ market in 2027, starting from almost nothing in 2015: 2015-2035 will be the years of electrification of the automotive and mobility industry. Clearly, this is a massive opportunity for the power device and power module makers, battery manufacturers, electric motor companies, as well as all the companies willing to enter this market in one way or another.

But this is also a nightmare for the existing automotive supply chain: they have just 20 years to reinvent themselves, find their way in a new industry (and clearly, electric mobility is essentially a new industry) that is now relying on front-end wafer fabs for access to power devices (on silicon, on SiC or using GaN…), complex power modules and inverters/converters to make the link between batteries and electric motors, invest in the proper design of these electric motors…

They also face new competitors from existing suppliers: power device makers are willing to provide more added value than just semiconductor devices and are moving to power modules and inverters. Battery manufacturers are now building electric vehicles; car makers are working directly with tier 2 and tier 3 suppliers, bypassing tier 1 suppliers for the essential modules (and the most valuable…). In addition, new car assemblers are emerging, electric-aware, and without the 10s of years of history and mindset to change.

The last wave of complexity is coming from technology changes in the semiconductor industry that are affecting vehicle electrification: Power SiC devices are changing the structure of the inverter and its performance (as well as the capabilities of the charging infrastructure), solid-state batteries require investment to be the next choice for car batteries, power module architectures are totally changing with the adoption of new materials…

Yes, mobility electrification is changing everything. Yole Group is offering the most comprehensive series of reports covering them all, from power devices (“Status of the power electronic industry” and “Power devices for automotive”) to power modules, from batteries (“Batteries for automotive”) to electric motors (“Motors for full electric vehicle”) and charging infrastructure. Take full advantage of the bundled offer from Yole Group to satisfy your data and analysis needs.