Transformations in the automotive industry towards electrification and their impacts on the production chains: an approach through the Spanish case

Abstract

All around the world, the automotive industry is undergoing profound transformations that are affecting the living and labour conditions of thousands of workers throughout the sector. One hegemonic rationale offered to explain (and thereby justify) these changes is the sector’s ongoing process of decarbonisation – its attempt at addressing both climate change and the depletion of oil reserves – and the central element in that process has been the transition to electric vehicles. This article presents the hypothesis that the possible paths to decarbonisation are not one but many, as indicated by the different profitability strategies currently being pursued in the manufacture of electric vehicles. Nevertheless, the goal of decarbonisation has sometimes served as an ideological alibi for the imposition of certain systems of organisation of production over others, especially at plants in semi-peripheral European regions (such as Spain). The success of such technological determinism will ultimately depend on the local culture of collective bargaining and the capacity of workers to resist unsatisfactory conditions.