With our new climate targets, transport has come under increased scrutiny as the only sector where emissions have been significantly rising in recent years. Fortunately, electric vehicles have matured at a remarkable pace to become an increasingly easy option to bring down the emissions associated with personal transport.
In the past couple years, the share of EVs in new car sales have skyrocketed in some Member States also thanks to new recovery funding leading to purchasing incentives and installations of new public charging infrastructure. Indeed, a new study to be presented on 12/01/22 shows that consumers are keen and ready to join this revolution.
This is all great news as what was previously considered a ‘hard-to-decarbonise’ sector is now better on track to climate neutrality. However, against this positive backdrop, we still hear some concerns from stakeholders in the fossil automotive value chain claiming this shift will lead to jobs losses.
EuropeOn, as the representative of electrical contractors who install and maintain charging infrastructure, has always been optimistic about his change. Indeed, we know that this new demand will lead to the creation of thousands of new jobs in our segment alone. More precisely, in 2018, when e-mobility had not yet taken off like today and transport decarbonisation targets where lower, we conducted our own analysis showing the EV charging market would lead to 112.500 new jobs by 2030 in our sole sector.
More recently, the Platform for electro-mobility has commissioned a wider study from the Boston Consulting Group which found that EVs would create 581.000 jobs in all segments by 2030. Further, it should be mentioned that electric vehicles open the door to a new market and ecosystem that will benefit both professional stakeholders and consumers. EV batteries can be used by aggregators who pool this distributed storage capacity together to offer energy services to grid operators, and remunerating consumers for the energy they make available through their car batteries.
This transition will however cause some changes that will have to be accompanied by adequate governmental support, especially in terms of re-skilling and training. National and regional authorities should already now anticipate these changes and ensure that the necessary workforce is available with the right skills to ensure this transition can take place smoothly. This entails ensuring that aspiring automotive workers are oriented towards future-proof careers by promoting technical and ‘STEM’ educational pathways, and ensuring that curricula are matched to the needs of the labour market by fostering cooperation with employers’ representatives.
The shift towards clean mobility is an opportunity for the EU economy and, similar to the entire energy transition, this can be part of our new growth strategy, provided it is well-managed and supported by governmental authorities.
