Polyamide in E-Mobility Market Exhibits Higher Growth till 2028

Posted by Arslan on February 15th, 2019

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), over more than 1 million electric vehicles were sold across the world, resulting in a global stock of over 3 million. The unprecedented rise of 54% in electric vehicle sales was recorded in 2017, attributed to some important environmental policy announcements, and this is expected to generate high demand for electric components manufactured using polyamide in e-mobility. In addition, China’s share in global sales of electric vehicles increased from just 10% in 2013 to over 40% in 2017, which indicates more lucrative opportunities for polyamide suppliers in e-mobility market in the country. Increasing stringency of environmental laws being enacted across the world is likely to accelerate electric vehicle sales in the coming years, contributing to the increasing applications of polyamide.

One of the leading reasons behind increased applications of polyamide in e-mobility is its thermal stability and temperature resistance properties. High performance plastics, such as polyamide 6 and polyamide 66, can retain its stability at temperatures as high as 230°C, thereby manufacturing automotive components using polyamide is becoming a popular trend among automakers.

Increasing demand for polyamide in e-mobility can be majorly attributed to its flame-retardant characteristic, which is boosting its applications in manufacturing of batteries, control units, and connectors in electric vehicles. Polyamide suppliers are aiming to discover innovative composites of polyamide to give automotive components electromagnetic shielding properties and diversify their product range to gain an edge in the market.

Automakers Focus on Weight Reduction in Automotive Components; Metal to be Replaced by Polyamide in E-mobility

Automotive manufacturers are shifting their focus towards employing high performance plastics to further enhance performance characteristics of automotive components. To eliminate the needs for maintenance and mitigate the disadvantages of heavy weight of metallic automotive components, automakers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are making a shift towards using lightweight materials such as polyamide in e-mobility.

Reducing weight of automotive components can help automakers to minimize energy consumption of electric vehicles, which is mainly bolstering the potential of high demand for polyamide in e-mobility. As lightweight design of automotive components measure a great importance in the automotive industry, the applications of polyamide in e-mobility are likely to be multiplied in the coming future.

According to the French industry association Groupement Plasturgie Automobile (GPA), the shortage of polyamide 66 supply caused an increase of more than 40% in its price in 2017. The global demand for lightweight automotive components has surged to put the supply chain for polyamide in e-mobility under immense pressure. As the polyamide supply has been too concentrated to meeting the burgeoning demand for lightweight automotive components, a majority of polyamide manufacturers have introduced a price rise.

BASF Corporation, a German chemical company, has increased the prices of polyamide 66 grades by --content--.38/lb. Celanese Corporation, an American manufacturer of specialty chemicals, increased the prices of polyamide 66-based long-fiber thermoplastic grades by --content--.22/kg in the U.S. and Asia, and by €0.15/kg in Europe. Koninklijke DSM N.V., a Dutch multinational, also announced that it has increased the prices of polyamide 66 by €0.17/kg.

In order to deal with polyamide 66 shortages and price rise, leading players are shifting to its smarter alternatives, such as polyamide 6, which is exhibits nearly similar strength and thermal stability as polyamide 66. Manufacturers of polyamide are also likely to introduce recycled polyamide compounds, which meet the necessary quality standards, for manufacturing automotive components to counteract tight supply and increased prices of polyamide 66.