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– You hope and believe in the best. But you still have to paint the worst case. That mix of hope and despair is sometimes quite difficult, says Marko Borg Peltonen, president of the IF Metall club at Volvo Cars’ Skövde engine factory, to Ekot.
Works around 1,500 people at the Skövde factory, according to Metall, and both gasoline and diesel engines are manufactured. If there were also no electric motor production there, in the long run it could be a very hard blow to the factory, as fewer internal combustion engines are needed when electric car sales increase.
– If the plans are as said (in the automotive industry), in the long run there will not be as many internal combustion engines. So either you have to find another business or we will eventually die, he claims.
Volvo Cars has now decided to develop and design its own electric motors, rather than purchasing them from subcontractors. It’s a significant investment, according to the company, and an electric motor laboratory was recently opened in Shanghai.
But the company wants Right now they don’t comment on where the electric motors will be made, or if Skövde can get that production.
Just over a year ago, Volvo CEO Håkan Samuelsson told Ekot that Skövde probably would not produce electric motors.
But despite that, the club president, Marko Borg Peltonen, still hopes it will be a positive message. He says that there are still production possibilities for electric motors in Skövde.
– That is the future. This means that it will be a security for our members and for the city of Skövde that we are involved in the production of electric motors. That means everything.
The fateful message for Skövde it may arrive in a few months.
– Personally, I think it should arrive next year, and quite early next year, says Borg Peltonen to Ekot.
This is a concrete example of how the big conversion to electric cars can affect many jobs and have important consequences.
– The technological shift from internal combustion engines to electricity will fundamentally affect industry and as a result, you can expect fewer jobs, says Martin Sköld, associate professor at the Stockholm School of Economics, to Ekot.
