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What we should remain focused on – and what we should be calling for government support on – is the continued development of the electric car as well as heightened investment in carbon fi bre. The commercial prospects for the two are inextricably interlinked.
I hear people speculating that the advent of the i3 means that carbon fi bre structures are about to hit the commercial car mainstream. I think that’s misguided as I believe that carbon fi bre won’t actually be deployed in mainstream car production until the next decade.
In fact, such commercial acceptance will be dependent, I believe, on the development of electric cars with ranges which are at least twice as far as those of electric cars on the road today.
Clearly, that is not about to happen overnight. So, getting over-excited about carbon fi bre now would be to miss the point. Much still needs to be done on the electric car fi rst.
However, once those improvements are made, the UK is in a wonderful position to capitalise on what could then become a booming market for carbon fi bre.
We know the UK dominates the Formula 1 scene. We’re also pretty nifty at producing airplane
wings for the likes of the A380 and the prototype A350. These are niche areas where carbon fi bre technology is already well advanced – and around which pockets of UK suppliers have already taken shape, with over 30 carbon fi bre manufacturers now in existence.
As and when carbon fi bre is deployed in commercially viable quantities within the automotive industry, suppliers will likely base their facilities around the car manufacturing hotspots of Germany, eastern Europe and the Far East - but those facilities could belong to UK companies.
That’s why we need to ensure that a healthy UK supply base is already in place when that time comes.
To this end, I hope that trade investors and private equity are already looking at this market. Even if mainstream acceptance is seven years away (at least), there is still a decent nascent industry to be invested in now; courtesy of developments like the i3.
Government will have a role to play too – and I believe there is an appreciation of the need to support both sides of the equation; the development of carbon fi bre and electric engine propulsion.
© 2013 KPMG LLP, a UK limited liability partnership, is a subsidiary of KPMG Europe LLP and a member fi rm of the KPMG network of independent member fi rms affi liated with KPMG International Cooperative, a Swiss entity. All rights reserved.
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CARBON FIBRE
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