The list of ambitious new EV brands goes on and on,
- already established firms such as BYD
, Xpeng , Nio in China and many new start-ups, - Lucid
, Canoo , Hyliion , Arrival and many, many others - legacy firms for their own line-ups (GE
, Volkswagen and the German majors, Stellantis and the Japanese established automakers) - contract manufacturers such as Magna International or recently annouced Foxconn
of Apple smartphone fame
All will be topping up their order book and run their newly installed EV lines at full capacity
With financing flowing freely, and bountiful start-up ambitions, additional demand for robotic equipment, already a stand-out feature on automotive production lines as it is, seems preordained
Picks and shovels of sorts...
The automotive industry has been – and remains – the industry’s most important customer with almost 28% of total installations, at 105 400 units in 2019 (latest available data by the IFR), a substantial drop over the previous years (2018 – 125 500 units)
Early data for 2020 highlights China's significant headstart with 167 000 industrial robots shipped - +19% - while global robot installation are stable 20/19 at 376 000 (implying a substantial drop ex-China)
Unsurprisingly, demand by the industry – and by automotive part suppliers – puts a very small number of countries at the top in terms of robot installations and number of robots per 10 000 workers
Germany, Japan and South Korea dominate but the U.S. fully committed to reindustrialization in this most visible - and popular - segment should become a significant force in the near future
According to Reuters, quoting LMC Automotive, automakers will invest over $37 billion in North American plants from 2019 to 2025, with 15 of 17 new plants in the United States and over 77% of that spending will be directed at SUV or EV projects
Even so, traveling up the supply chain, from EV exhilaration (the Tesla effect…) to the costly commitments to new production lines, where a paint or body shop can be a $200-$300 million investment, ever cautious industrial programs will proceed step-wise
What this means is that bottlenecks are here to stay – and in the foreseeable future, the pure play industrial robotics manufacturers such as Kuka Invalid tag asset, Fanuc
Check the full list including the major industrial conglomerates engaged in robotics