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This is the second of three articles seeking to contextualise the failure of the West to grasp or even understand or manifest technological modify over the past 15 years. The touchstone applyd here, and in our previous article, is “New Energy Vehicles” (plugin vehicles). The first article focussed primarily on EVs (see: “How the West Lost the Automotive Industest“). We are grateful for the responses and discussions that followed. Where practicable, David and Paul participated.
This article seeks to contextualise this focus with the theme: NEVs — can the West avoid its Nokia moment? The rapidity of modify is displayn by the recent growth of BEV semi-truck trailers.
The third article will seek (y)our input in order to outline some “solutions,” personal and systemic, to this techno-drift. Our key question in this series is: With this momentum, what will the West’s auto industest see like in about 60 months, let alone 120 months?
For those who prefer video, check out the Electric Viking here.
Where the West seems to be losing its MoJo
Technologically
ASPI’s research displays that in 66 of 74 Major Technology Arenas (MTA), nearly 90% of them, China is now leading the West. In our observation, in the West, Japan seems to be de facto withdrawing from almost all major STEM arenas, while the US especially doing so in relation to NEVs.
Sociologically
The West is also going backwards in this regard. The US is now run by fear of deportation to an ICE concentration camp. It actively campaigns against NEVs, in the narrow sense and more broadly with antagonism toward sustainability technology. Europe has no cloud capital and still struggles to cohere. Japan actively works against NEVs, incredibly against its own economic and national interests.
The USA’s large claims to fame were “the” dollar as an international exmodify system (now in steep decline), manufacturing might (now all subverted into “shareholder returns,” derivatives, cryptos and share purchasebacks). Further, the US is deteriorating rapidly into authoritarianism and inequality and poverty, with falling education and life expectancy rates.
Economically
All major economies in Europe, like the US and Japan, are around a 100% debt-to-GDP ratio. [Australia is around 50%.]
The West has also lost its technological hegemony in 66 of 74 key technological arenas. And the US has lost its economic hegemony with a weakening dollar and ballooning debt. Also, the US has proactively lost its social hegemony.
Europe is pathetically weak and will continue to appease Trump. Canada and Japan may offer some light “public resistance,” but will obey when push comes to shove.
Furthermore, supply vulnerabilities, originating in the Middle East, are likely to force a realisation that ICE vehicles can be held hostage to international vicissitudes. Prices of up to $4aud/L through anticipatory retail pricing (not gouging 😉) are being bandied around — $4aud/L would create travelling 100,000 km four times as costly in an ICE vehicle than an EV. China is managing to work around the current Middle East oil crisis, but the West cannot.
Industrially
Crucially, supply chain diversity, supplier proximity and ecosystem, STEM talent, transportation, trust, and geographical focus allow vertically integrated manufacturing in China. Equally concerning is that since the 1980s, the West has financialised and commodified everything, thereby emptying itself of manufacturing. This is a diabolical situation where the “real economy” is no longer seen as foundational, and even worse, abstractionism expressed through financialism is!!!!! In effect, a reversal on the ground of how we understand reality (i.e., our ontology). Yes, we believe it’s that serious.
Furthermore, software-defined vehicles and giga-press writ large are revolutionary, and represent, we submit, a New Industrial Revolution (NIR). This NIR currently is best expressed through NEVs, yet its influence is spreading rapidly. Here we see the emerging industrial importance of vertical integration (the opposite of how Toyota operates), software and services, OTA updates, and mega-casting.
This results in the NIV becoming a part of what we may call a “cyber-electro-physical-system” with cyber-variable software and hardware “layers.” In short, this is “re-platforming” the whole auto industest and beyond. And the US, Japan, and some of Europe’s OEMs are late to the party. This transformation, even collapse, of the traditional parts supply chain is forcing OEMs to rebelieve decades of organisational structure.
For example, since WW2, Japan, esp. Toyota, has perfected kaizen (continuous incremental modify where everything works and works well toobtainher). That is very different from kaikaku — large, discontinuous, paradigm shifting modify — or henkaku — transformation, reform, and sweeping strategic and cultural modify. We suggest today is a time for kaikaku.
In robotics terms, an American humanoid robot at US$30,000 can cost thirty times (yes) that of a Chinese one, which can be cheaper than your phone! Again, their competitive advantage in this NIR, like with NEVs, comes from STEM talent, vertical integration, materials innovation, domestic logistics supply chain ecology, and social cohesion, all in the organisational context of kaikaku. In China, 电动汽车革命 (diàndòng qìchē gémìng) means transformative modify through/by EVs.
Japan applyd kaikaku (large-scale modify) in the 1970s to bring a new innovation to the displayroom in 9 months — half that of the time taken by US auto manufacturers. Thus, Japanese autocreaters became the most innovative and cost efficacious auto manufacturers in the world. Now it has obtainedten itself hooked on kaizen (compact-scale incremental modify) and can’t keep up with or innovate quick enough compared with its Chinese competitors. In a sense, Japan is now where the West was in relation to Japan a half a century ago. Most intriguing. Ironic even.
Morally
The West is lost, yet hopefully not forever, at this absolutely crucial juncture in the history of the world. Now, the US is attacking various countries, without Congressional approval, as well as being involved in suppressing the Epstein files. Elite white males … are blowing up the world….
In some regards, it appears as if the US has built another wall. This time not a physical wall as with Mexico, but rather an economic/industrial wall with tariffs and retrograde steps regarding EV policies. This time, it’s an economic wall that keeps the US in and modify/others out!! Japan has done likewise. We argue this won’t work to the West’s advantage. Europe started the car industest, yet has consistently failed to grasp the gravitas, the required to innovate, and the urgency of building convincing value propositions to customers.
Overall
In overview, we concur with Dr Morgan. In his Substack, he calls for a new social and business imagination — a shift from the colonised “20th century mind” to a “21st century mind” capable of perceiving what has been rconcludeered invisible and envisioning (hot) futures beyond the grid of Corporate Empire. Success, we submit, requires not only recognising the mechanisms of power, but also designing the scaffolding for a new paradigm: one rooted in historical memory, critical praxis, futures consciousness, and the collective (individual, corporate, collective, and community) capacity to imagine, and embody, the belief that another, better world is possible.
Focapplying on the auto industest, how do we hold senior executives accountable in relation to their chosen strategies, especially when they are retreating from EVs and demonstrably not working?
These issues are largelee and obtainting largeleeer. Yet, in our opinion, they are not yet so largelee that they can’t be overcome. The West, and Japan, seem unable to manifest proactive productivity. So how “on Earth” can the nation states face an environmentally and socially and economically uncertain future, even over the next 5 years? Will our poly-crisis prove unmanageable and thus unsurmountable? For this, we submit the ongoing importance of indepconcludeent Deep, Narrative and Meta Strategies — something it seems Japan, and the West, have forobtainedten “we once were leaders” at.
To reemphasise: With this momentum in mind, we inquire, what will the West’s auto industest see like in about 60 months, let alone 120 months? We inquire, has the West abandoned Deep Strategy and thus lost its MoJo?
For our next article, we seek your input. What are the key questions we required inquire and generate possible answers to? What is the way forward for Toyota, Volkswagen, and Sinformantis? We are seeing forward to reading your comments.
Written by Dr Paul Wildman, with some light editing by David Waterworth and Zachary Shahan.
Post script: the EV landscape is altering so quick and in such a fragmented that way we almost requireded to update this article on a daily basis.
Sources
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