[ad_1]
On the supplier side, the challenge for industries such as metalworking will be to reinvent themselves because with the electric motor it is estimated that 70% of current parts will disappear, for example, the clutch.
Even though Mexico has already begun the transition in the production of parts, components and internal combustion vehicles to electric, hybrid and other automated technologies, which makes it remain competitive in North America, the lack of foreign investment, the change in operating rules, Legal certainty and the absence of renewable energies could slow down the restructuring of the automotive industry of the future, representatives and specialists from the automotive sector agreed.
“We already manufacture all the auto parts for new technology vehicles, we are already doing that. We started a couple of years ago and we are going to manufacture what the client asks of us. Of the 94,000 million dollars of auto parts production (carried out by the Mexican industry) by 2021, almost 70,000 million go to the United States and there is already a lot of manufacture of electric vehicles and new technology ”, says Alberto Bustamante, president of the National Industry de Autopartes (INA).
In Mexico, it is different, because only Ford and General Motors are producing electric vehicles in the domestic market. And although the transition to the use of electric vehicles will not be overnight, because combustion units will continue to be marketed, production chains must prepare because thousands of parts will disappear, he warns.
Arturo Rangel, specialist in the automotive industry in the business sector and former member of the Board of the T-MEC and the CPTPP, argues that there is a great opportunity for the reconversion of Mexican suppliers given the migration of combustion engines to electric because they disappear 70% of parts and others must add technology to the powertrain.
“From having 80,000 parts numbers plus the powertrain, now you are going to have 1,000 parts, because the electric motor is simple and there are almost no moving parts and this is an impact for the metalworking industry, for those who are in forges, that’s why a technological reconversion of suppliers must be carried out to see what they are going to focus on ”, he explains.
For example, the clutch disappears completely, and the suppliers of this part have two options: go to heavy industry, building a friction system that they could compensate in volume or go to opposite ends of miniaturizing.
The president of the INA estimates that combustion manufacturing will continue for at least another 10 years, but by the time the transition to electric arrives, all the auto parts that depend on an internal combustion system, such as converters, will disappear. catalysts, gasoline pumps, motor oils, the exhaust system, that is what is going to stop making at some point.
However, both interviewees recognize that Mexico is competitive as part of the advantages offered by the T-MEC, “we are going to continue to be competitive because we are the main supplier for the United States and we have opportunities with the increase in the value of the regional content of the rules of origin. There is a very great opportunity because we have to substitute imports between Canada, the United States and Mexico, ”says Bustamante.
Lithium battery, an opportunity
The opportunity that Mexico has is to produce the lithium battery, because the rest of the parts are already manufactured. In our country there is the second largest lithium deposit in the world, but foreign investment is required for these projects to be achieved and for this, “public policy is needed, which supports direct foreign investment, giving it legal certainty for that lithium can be exploited in our country and it can be sold to battery factories to produce them ”, says the president of the INA.
So far, we are the main supplier to the US, and Mexico supplies almost 40% of auto parts to its northern neighbor. So we will continue to be competitive, “in the short and medium term, but we are going to start losing it if we do not migrate to advanced technological platforms in national companies.”
Without public policies at the federal level, it is now up to the state and municipal governments to initiate incentive actions for foreign investment and to make alliances to strengthen the research and development centers of the production chains of the automotive sector.
“I would not like to see the Bajío turned into the Detriot of the eighties, desolate and without production, huge factories, but that do not produce anything. We live a lot in inertia, now we have to work ”, commanded the former president of the Canacintra Automotive Sector Commission.
However, the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador has reiterated that lithium will not be privatized, and it will be the government that will take charge of the mineral that is strategic for the development of the future of Mexico.
“But the simple fact that we are sitting on the gold mine does not mean that we are already millionaires, extraction is one part, but then processing the material is another part. If the government wants to take it, it needs to make a very strong investment to be able to compete globally, otherwise we will end up as suppliers of the raw material, ”says specialist Arturo Rangel.
lilia.gonzalez@eleconomista.mx
[ad_2]