Some believe the end of the combustion engine car may be upon us, and it may have happened because of the war in Ukraine.
Supplies of wire harnesses have been choked off by the war in Ukraine, which was the home of a large portion of wire harness manufacturing capacity, producing harnesses for hundreds of thousands of new cars every year..
Although not as glamorous as microchips, low-tech wire harnesses, produced from basic parts with unskilled labor, are a vital part of every new vehicle. With the average car having 3.1 miles of wire within it, wire harnesses are critical means of simplifying the assembly and organization of very complex wiring systems. On top of that almost every car’s wiring harnesses are unique, making finding replacements difficult.
As car manufacturers run out of them, they are left with a choice of maintaining a production line for a product they cannot assemble, or abandoning the model and moving the production line to a newer model designed to use lighter, machine-made harnesses such as those designed for electric vehicles.
Sam Fiorani, head of production forecasting firm AutoForecast Solutions said, “This is just one more rationale for the industry to make the transition to electric quicker.”
Although EV production doubled to 4 million units built last year, they still only made up 6% of vehicle sales. By far, gasoline vehicles still accounted for the bulk of auto sales. So for the time being however, most manufacturers have focused on shifting wire harness production to other low-labor-cost countries.
Most manufacturers are moving production to countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Poland, Serbia and Romania. Mercedes Benz was even able to fly in wire harnesses from Mexico to fill a supply hole in its production. Bentley had originally feared it would lose 30-40% of its car production for 2022 due to a harness shortage, according to Adrian Hallmark, CEO. “The Ukraine crisis threatened to close our factory fully for several months, much longer than we did for COVID,” he said.
Many car industry players interviewed said internal combustion engine cars face looming bans in Europe and China. This has produced a belief they will not be around long enough to justify redesigns to allow them to use newer-generation harnesses.
Michigan-based auto consultant Sandy Munro, who estimates EVs will make up half of global new car sales by 2028, said, “I wouldn’t put a penny into internal combustion engines now. The future is coming up awful fast.”
