If electric mobility replaces internal combustion, what will happen to the makers of spark plugs" That’s a major question for NGK Spark Plug, which has a plan for remaining relevant into the electric-vehicle era: solid-state vehicle batteries. The move by the Japanese company, the world?s largest spark-plug maker, is emblematic of a wave of change that is likely to sweep across automotive supplier companies in the year ahead.
The reason is that, in many cases, their business is due to change dramatically over the next decade or so. In the past year, we’ve seen a critical mass of automaker announcements that indicate a stepped-up pace for vehicle electrification and, perhaps, a shorter timeline for when new vehicles solely powered by batteries will outnumber those with internal-combustion (IC) engines. Although a number of automakers have announced their commitment to offering electrified models, none of them have given a specific timeline for retiring engines, which will continue in hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrains. Toyota was one of the few to underscore how many IC-free vehicles it?s targeting: It intends to reach a million annual sales of battery-electric and fuel-cell vehicles by 2030. GM has an even more ambitious goal: a million in 2026.
The Spark Is Still Very Much Needed
Predictions vary widely on how quickly internal-combustion engines will go away completely. Most forecasts anticipate that the majority of new vehicles will have an internal...