Giants, of course, have long-established, sophisticated operations in vehicle production, supply chain, and supplier management. They know how to build cars and have the established supply chain to do it. But now they need to balance the simultaneous production of ICE-powered vehicles and EVs. This requires developing EV battery and powertrain partners while continuing to foster relationships with current powertrain suppliers.
Disruptors face a more daunting task. They have the technology that’s essential to EVs and a culture of innovation that enables them to continually push their thinking. But they need to build an entirely new supply chain from scratch—something that’s taken the giants decades to do—and put the structure in place to manage supplier performance and quality.
Trying to keep pace with both the giants and disruptors are the industry’s suppliers. Traditional ICE powertrain suppliers will have to evolve to support both current and future development and production needs across ICE- and EV-related products. One way to do that is to split their business in two, one part serving the traditional ICE market and the other focusing on the rapidly emerging EV/connected, autonomous, shared, electric (CASE) sector. A number of leading suppliers have already taken steps in that direction.v