North American and European Electric Light Commercial Vehicle Drivetrain Growth Opportunities

Advanced Platform Technology and Platform Sharing Across Body Styles to Ensure Future Growth Potential of Advanced Drivetrain Architectures

The elc industry in North America and Europe is expected to grow at a CAGR of 53.9% until 2030 to 3.5 million units, driven by strong government mandates and incentives, and improving TCO because of falling component prices. The initial phase of eLCVs will predominantly use eAxles, making up nearly three-fourths of the sales in 2022; however, this is expected to shrink to just more than half of sales by 2030 because of the growing preference for in-board drives. Electric pickups are likely to use in-board drive architecture, and with the North American LCV industry being predominantly pickup based, the overall penetration of in-board drive is expected to remain high even in the future. Being a van-dominant LCV market, eAxles are expected to be the major drivetrain option for vans; however, within eAxles, the penetration of eCarrier is likely to decline, when compared to eCrown, by 2030.

In-board motors will remain the dominant drive architecture within pickups, whereas eAxles, especially eCrown, will be the dominant drive architecture in vans. Higher penetration of in-board motors in vans by 2030 is expected to be largely down to new electric start-ups, such as Canoo and Rivian, basing their vans on the same platform as the ones used for their respective pickups. Electric pickups are expected to hit the European market only after 2025 majorly from North American OEMs, in addition to VW’s Amarok electric. eAxles currently provide the best balance in terms of price, performance, and durability; however, in-board architecture offers the best performance in terms of efficiency and durability. Many heavy-duty applications are expected to employ in-board drive architecture that is placed close to the wheels to provide optimum torque transfer and high power output. As companies transform from older platforms and adopt newer pure electric platforms, the drive architecture preference is also expected to shift accordingly, to more powerful, efficient, and flexible architectures.