Customers look at Tesla Model S 90D electric vehicles parked at a charging station in a shopping complex in South Korea.SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg
Autonomous, electric vehicles shared by neighbours are on the horizon but won't dominate the global vehicle market even by 2030.
Those are among the conclusions of an auto industry technology road map done for the federal government and scheduled to be released Wednesday at the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association of Canada annual conference in Windsor, Ont.
A summary of the study, which was done for the Innovation Science and Economic Development Canada by the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich., was obtained by The Globe and Mail. Among its findings are that by 2030:
- Battery-electric vehicles will move closer to cost competitiveness with internal combustion engines, but the engine that has dominated personal transportation for more than a century will still hold a significant portion of the market;
- About 26 per cent of global miles travelled will be on a shared basis through ride-hailing services and taxis, compared with about 4 per cent today;
- Level four autonomous vehicles, in which humans are passengers only with no control, begin to be deployed for personal use after being adopted for robo-taxis, commercial vehicles and shuttles.
The study comes as auto makers and technology giants spend billions of dollars developing battery-electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles, invest in ride-sharing services and assess whether advances in processes such as 3D printing and artificial intelligence will lower the cost of vehicle production.
Consumers, government regulation and costs are among the key factors that will enable or constrain the growth of new technologies that will transform the auto landscape, the report says.
"The more accepting consumers are of new materials, technologies, or new mobility services the more likely these technologies will advance," the summary says. It also warned, however, that the market determines the success of vehicles, not regulations or new technologies themselves.
The study suggests significant advances by 2025, including increased use of alternative materials, such as magnesium, aluminum and plastic composites, in vehicles, widespread acceptance of vehicle sharing models and wide availability of vehicle-to-vehicle communications that will contribute to so-called intelligent mobility.
The critical result of the study is not the map itself, said one industry source, but what Canadian companies, particularly those in the auto supply chain, do with the information.
"Where are we participating? Do we have the technology? Do we have a gap?" the industry source asked.
The parts industry's participation in this is crucial, the source added, because with U.S. President Donald Trump's hectoring of auto makers that are exporting vehicles to the United States from Mexico, no car company is likely to locate a new assembly plant in that country or Canada.
"We need to develop a supply chain that is geared to the technology map," the source said, pointing out that governments also have a role to play.