FORECAST

THAT EUROPE IS EXPECTED TO HAVE A 67.3 PER CENT PENETRATION RATE – UP FROM 22 PER CENT IN 2023 –FOR NEW ENERGY VEHICLES.

his places it ahead of China (66.6 per cent), South Korea (60.5 per cent) and the US (45.8 per cent), while the Middle East and Africa are forecast to have a penetration rate of only 2.7 per cent.

In October 2022, an agreement was reached by the European Parliament and European Council ensuring all new cars and vans registered in Europe will be zeroemission by 2035.

“Reaching zero emissions by 2035 raises questions around the long-term relevance of hybrid technology in Europe and implies an outright ban on combustion engine technology within 15 years,” the report said.

“While OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) viewed electrification as just a tool to meet CO2 targets a couple of years ago, it has now become an integral part of many of their strategies. The uptake from end consumers has also been encouraging, as evidenced in the strong BEV (battery electric vehicle) sales outperformance since 2020.”

The growth in popularity of electric vehicles was shown in the UK in the past year, as battery electric new cars took a market share of about 17 per cent in 2022, overtaking diesel for the first time to become the second most popular system after petrol (according to data released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders shows).

December saw battery electric vehicles claim their largest ever monthly market share of 33 per cent, driven by a large number of Tesla cars being delivered.

Last year was regarded as a good year for electric vehicle adoption in the US, with new vehicle sales penetration growing throughout the year to more than 5 per cent of total light vehicle sales.

The rise in EV adoption came despite significant price increases implemented by car makers to

“EVS HAVE GAINED IN POPULARITY NOT ONLY FOR BEING ELECTRIC, BUT ALSO FOR CONTAINING STATE-OF-THE-ART CONNECTIVITY AND OVER-THE-AIR SOFTWARE UPDATES, OFTEN WITH NEXT-GENERATION ADVANCED DRIVER ASSISTANCE SYSTEMS FEATURES” offset input costs. However, twothirds of total EV sales came from just eight US states.

The Citi report said there could be a sudden rise in demand on the way; “Though US EV penetration continues to lag other geographies, we continue to believe that the structure of the US auto market lends itself well for a potential sharp and sudden inflection in EV demand.

“This is because vehicle density in the US – the ratio of vehicles per household –ranks highest in the world at greater than 2x, with around 285 million light vehicles on the road.

“EVs have gained in popularity not only for being electric, but also for containing state-of-theart connectivity and overthe-air software updates, often with next-generation advanced driver assistance systems features. As the supply of available EVs grows and as EV charging infrastructure continues to expand, it is conceivable that an increasing number of US households will rapidly decide to migrate to a one internal combustion engine and one EV household –essentially retaining the best of both worlds.”

The economic downturn could, however, provide a shock to EV adoption in the US. EV sales in California account for 35 per cent of the US total, and they could be susceptible to the technology industry layoffs which have been prevalent in recent months, especially with demand supported by a greater mix of younger buyers. EV adoption in the latter part of the decade will depend on newer battery technologies and the ability to launch high volume EVs at mass market prices.

Meanwhile, in China, the adoption of new energy vehicles is being driven by consumer appetite for the technology, strong product cycles and government incentives. Growth in EV users will be aided by a sharp rise in the number of models available to buyers, and particularly at a lower price point.

“Across the price stack, we expect the number of distinct NEVs (new energy vehicles) available for sale to increase from 235 models in 2022 to 399 models in 2025,” the Citi report said.

“On average, we expect 70 per cent of NEVs to transact at prices below RMB200,000 ($28,700) and only 5-7 per cent of NEVs to transact at prices above RMB300,000 ($43,000), during that forecast horizon.”

The report comes as Tesla, the world's biggest electric car company, announced another record for annual deliveries, as it shipped 1.31 million cars in 2022, up more than 40 per cent year on year.

However, Tesla's deliveries missed Wall Street estimates, and even the company's own growth projection of 50 per cent, despite opening two new factories last year.

For further information, visit www.tesla.com

Source: www.thenationalnews.com

Software As A Key Differentiator In Warehouse Automation

Sutharshan Nadarajah, Technology Director, and Timo Eberhard, Head of Digital Transformation & Project Management Office (PMO), at Element Logic, explore their organisation’s key ambitions in the lead up to 2025.

lement Logic is a leading provider of warehouse robotics and automation solutions, all of which are located within the four walls of the distribution centre. It was established in 1985, but last year saw the company double both its turnover and number of employees. Growing ecommerce organisations need to automate their warehouse operations to be competitive in the market, which is where Element Logic can assist.

Sutharshan Nadarajah, Technology Director explains, “Our mission is to make our customers more profitable by optimising their warehouse performance. We are the world’s largest provider of AutoStore-based solutions, as well as offering a one-stop shop including software for warehouse automation. We only provide automated solutions to our customers. We build the software around the hardware from our partners to provide a solution that fulfils the needs of our customers.”

Existing software products in Element Logic’s ecosystem include eManager, eOperator and eController, and the internal R&D team is constantly working on new developments. The company is a one-stop-shop for warehouse automation, and alongside the software focus, they are experts in AutoStore, the robotic piece-picking arm and conveyors.

Element Logic has developed eLogiq, the data platform that collects and combines the huge amounts of internal and external data from the company’s software and hardware solutions to provide more data-driven services to its customers for optimising warehouse performance.

Sutharshan says, “We must think one step further from data visualisation and reporting to utilising data to provide data-driven services to optimise warehouse performance. We must help our customers to work smarter and not harder. We have several ambitions that we are working towards for 2025. One of the most important goals is software as a key differentiator in warehouse automation. Our software should be one of the key reasons for our customers to select Element Logic. To achieve this ambition, we are continuing to develop a fully connected, integrated software ecosystem. We have defined six golden rules that our software products need to follow.”

The R&D department is responsible for developing all of Element Logic’s software products designed to optimise warehouse performance. Timo Eberhard, Head of Digital Transformation & PMO, is driving the transformation process within R&D together with other functions across the company. He says, “With increasingly interconnected data sources, there are greater possibilities to make our hardware more intelligent with the software products we have available. The customers can therefore experience more added value and increasingly optimise their warehouse performance. We want to ensure every customer has the possibility for the right individual value that is the best fit for them and their specific stage of development. Customer data gives us the possibility to provide customised value.”

So, how are digital transformation, product-centricity and product management interconnected? Timo answers, “Digital transformation refers to the use of technology to drive a fundamental change. Productcentricity and product management practices are a catalyst to drive this change. Organising cross-functional tech and product teams along the value chain gives us even more possibilities to drive value for the customer, eg through continuous and iterative approaches and feedback loops, and ultimately results in a clear product-market fit.”

Besides being very customer oriented, Element Logic has started its journey to being more product centric by encouraging a stronger productcentric mindset in the company. Sutharshan explains, “Developing more scalable products ensures market fit and also helps to increase recurring business. It is all about having a product factory mindset. We must build the products needed by our customers based on great market insight, starting with defining a particular problem and finding solutions to it.”

Sutharshan highlights the importance of leveraging leading-edge technology to optimise warehouse performance. He says, “If you don’t understand the technology trends, you will be forced to change your strategy. Technology changes how we do things, and it changes the business environment, which again imposes changes in the strategy of a company. So, we need to understand the technology trends to be able to change our strategy before we are forced by our business environments. It is one of the golden rules for our software products. We have to base our solutions on leading-edge technology in order to be efficient and competitive.”

The six golden rules that all Element Logic software products must focus on include:

1. User-centricity

2. Standard and scalable

3. Modularity

4. Seamless experience

5. Tech-first and first mover

6. Value and data-driven.

Timo adds, “Being at the forefront of technology is in the DNA of Element Logic because we were the very first distributor of AutoStore-based solutions. We were also the very first to offer a robotic piece-picking solution integrated with AutoStore. Consequently, it is important for us to deliver the best-in-class solution with leading-edge technology to our customers.”

Element Logic prides itself on its strong cross-functional collaboration between the various teams within the company. Sutharshan continues, “Our pre-sales engineering team talks directly to the customer and understands their needs. We ensure we have strong collaboration with them because they are bringing the customer needs closer to us. Then we have the product management and technology teams, which develop the products. Internal collaboration is essential, but also collaboration with our partners, as our solutions include their technology. Hence, we promote strong collaboration with the product management, R&D and engineering departments of our partners.”

Element Logic has developed an autonomous pick-and-place solution for its customers. Sutharshan says, “Having piloted a robotic arm for two years, we successfully delivered to Swedish pharmaceutical company, Apotea. The pharmaceutical industry with lots of small pickable items is one of our sweet-spot customer segments for our robotic piece-picking solution, and now we have a very good case for it. It's an exciting time for us!”

Looking ahead to Element Logic’s principal ambitions for the next few years, Sutharshan reinforces the fact that the company’s focus will be on what it means to be a productcentric organisation with crossfunctional collaboration. He concludes, “With software as one of our key differentiators, we have done some careful thinking about how we want to develop our interconnected software ecosystem. Becoming a productcentric organisation with product factory mindset will help us to achieve our ambition and be able to deliver even better value for our customers.”

For further information on Element Logic, visit www.elementlogic.net

About Element Logic

Download our whitepaper about software, ‘Data utilization: The next level of warehouse automation’

Element Logic is a technology company that optimises warehouses for customers to gain a competitive edge. The company was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Norway. They operate worldwide, and it is the world’s first and largest AutoStore partner. Element Logic offers its customers automated and robotic solutions, software and consulting services. Their total revenue for 2021 was EUR 304 million.