Work Shift

The automotive industry is facing a new battery-powered world. How fast is it coming, and how will it affect the engineers of today and tomorrow?

- By Greg Fink and Elana Scherr. Illustrations by Carl Wiens

It's happened before.

A new technology comes in, and what seemed like it had always been and always would be quickly becomes old-fashioned, unwanted, and a hard way to earn a living. Just ask your friendly neighborhood milkman or the owner of a corner Fotomat. In transportation, where change generally comes slowly, automakers' recent declarations that they plan to stop developing internal-combustion engines (ICE) and pivot to electrified lineups represent a real sea change. Arguably, the last radical move in the automotive industry occurred in the 1980s, when fuel injection wiped out carburetors, which was prompted by emissions regulations and high fuel prices. Sound familiar?

There have been plenty of ICE advancements since then, but they've been largely incremental: more injectors, more turbochargers, more sensors everywhere. Nothing to force an engineer back to the classroom. Now a big wave is about to crash on the industry, and everyone can either surf it or drown. This is no big deal for folks in marketing, who love a fun new trend, or even those in design electric platforms open up new spaces and shapes to play with. But what about those with engine right in their job title? Will engineers working on piston power find their careers stalling out like an emissions-era carburetor? Will students mid-degree find their diplomas as hard a sell as a steam car in 1930?

In 2021, CEO after CEO announced plans for electrification. The consulting firm McKinsey & Company predicts that EVs (battery and fuel-cell) will make up more than 40 percent of new-car sales in the U.S. by 2030. They currently constitute less than 3 percent, which means a lot of models would need to be designed, engineered, and purchased in the next eight years.