After nearly a century of domination of the transportation sector by the internal combustion engine, it now seems that the time has come for electric vehicles to take over a significant part of both, the developed and the developing vehicle markets. E-vehicles will likely see a ‘big bang’ in the vehicle market to replace internal combustion vehicles in the personal vehicle market. This broad-scale adoption of e-vehicles is being expected to be a boon for the engineering sector, especially the automobile sector.
WHY AUTOMOBILE ENGINEERS ARE REQUIRED IN THIS INDUSTRY?
All kinds of engineers are in demand in this sector, but this revolution will be particularly beneficial for automobile engineers because their role is irreplaceable to govern standards and undertake training and certification for e-vehicle.
It is possible that the development and production rate of e-vehicles will become limited without adequate care being taken to maintain standards in all aspects – the rate of production, smoothness in this transition, maintaining jurisdictions, public safety, and ensuring a sustainable environment.
There are several areas where modifications or new adaptations will be required of the current standards in training and certification, especially regarding batteries, charging infrastructures, and electricity distribution. Teams of skilled engineers and individuals from other disciplines will be needed to account for the environmental characteristics of electricity consumption and to interpret various aspects of the vehicle-to-grid and smart grid technologies.
In comparison to combustion-engine vehicles, e-vehicles require more robust teams of engineers and experienced individuals from other related disciplines for supervising smooth designing, modification, testing, production, and marketing.
FUTURE OF E-VEHICLE INDUSTRY
Luckily, it seems that there will be greater innovation and production potential of e-vehicles and, in turn, new jobs because many notable companies are already heavily investing in this revolution. James Ayre, a writer in CleanTechnica, has pointed that over $100 billion investments have now been pledged by the world’s top automobile manufacturers to aid in this revolution.
Such huge investments have been pledged to aid in the development of electric vehicles and associated battery technology. But what is more important is, much of this investment will be made to fuel engineering brains to profit from this revolution. This answers the question of whether automobile engineers are likely to benefit from the development of e-vehicles.
Automobile engineers deal with the designing, manufacturing, operation, repairing, and servicing aspects of automobiles and their respective subsystems. It also deals with vehicles. Thus, there will be exponential growth in the demand for these professionals even in India. This is because many notable foreign manufacturers like Volkswagen, Audi, Renault, Honda, Hyundai, etc. are targeting India as a base for manufacturing e-vehicles or their parts. As more and more companies take part in this revolution there will be a rapid increase in the demand for automobile graduates who can be molded and employed at reasonable salary packages.
CONCLUSION
Although the initial posts are likely to be taken up by the experienced engineers, demand for young brains will still be present in reputed companies. In the next few decades, the employment rate is expected to double among both skilled and unskilled professions in the EV industry.