The battle for e-drive supremacy: Make vs. Buy

OEMs will increase in-house production of e-drives for product differentiation to prevent job losses and reduce product development times and supply chain dependencies, but tier 1 suppliers still have huge opportunities in the market, especially in the e-drive component and sub-component domain.

Received wisdom for the supplier community in the recent past has focused on preparing product portfolios for the transition to battery-electric vehicles (BEVs). However, as Liam Butterworth, CEO of Dowlais Group plc, the parent company of GKN Automotive Limited, recently disclosed suppliers are not capitalizing, even if they have been early movers into the BEV component market. This insight sets out to examine the e-drive, or e-axles, market and provides clues as to why the anticipated yields for suppliers might not be forthcoming.