EVs could make 7 out of 8 car technicians obsolete

Singapore

ELECTRIC vehicles (EVs) could go mainstream in Singapore in just 3 years' time, thinks Jasmmine Wong, CEO of Inchcape Greater China and Singapore, the dealership group that includes Borneo Motors, the authorised retailer for Lexus and Toyota here.

"My personal view is, it depends on what you mean by 'mainstream', but by 2025 there will be a lot more EV options available," Wong told The Business Times (BT). "The charging infrastructure still may not be ready, but at least it will still be better than how it is right now."

Wong spoke to BT at the signing ceremony for a memorandum of understanding between Inchcape and Singapore Polytechnic on Tuesday (Apr 5). The 2 parties intend to jointly design and develop a training curriculum that prepares students for the transition to EVs, a change that will disrupt the car business.

Wong reckons that with fewer moving parts in EVs, car companies like Inchcape will end up needing just 1 technician for every 8 that they have today. Much of the mechanical know-how relevant to combustion cars is headed for obsolescence. In its place, knowledge of circuitry, software, battery chemistry and data analysis looks set to become valuable.

In working with Inchcape, Singapore Polytechnic gets a front-row seat to the coming change as it unfolds. Its students will receive tools from the dealership group along with lithium-ion car batteries to tinker with. The school expects 700 students to be ready for the new jobs in the post-combustion world by 2024. For her part, Wong sees the training courses as a way to identify promising students and recruit them.

Borneo won a "Triple Crown" award from Toyota for the fourth time under her watch last year, by taking the Japanese brand to the top of the sales charts for passenger cars, taxis and commercial vehicles.

The company has just one full electric vehicle in its line-up, the Lexus UX 300e, but Wong sees EV-readiness as a critical matter. "What is really, really urgent right now is that we need to really train our workforce, get them the right skills and the interest to work in these areas of electrification," she said.

Wong apparently includes herself in the need for training. She recently slipped into competitors' showrooms to take EVs for test drives. She said she drove a variety of cars from Chinese and German manufacturers and tried out a Tesla Model 3, to deepen her knowledge about the new-fangled world of electric cars. Uneasy lies the head that wears the triple crown.