Ev-Only Future Will Cause Millions of Job Losses in Japan Alone

According to Akido Toyoda, Chairman of Toyota Motors, a shift to an EV-only future will cause millions of jobs to be lost from the Japanese economy and this not just at the big-name manufacturers.

Much of the Japanese car business runs on small cottage industry suppliers who make a myriad of parts in the back streets of Japanese Cities. In total at least 5.5 million workers are involved in the auto-manufacturing industry with many of them committed to the design and development of engine-based technologies. 

Akido warns that this sector will be hit very hard and necessitate an almost seismic shift in the car culture of the country and by definition how people in the future will be employed.

To put it bluntly he has warned the government that “If electric vehicles become the only choice, including for our suppliers, these jobs would be lost,” he also added that he likes gasoline engines, as do we at Automology.

Little by little the world has fallen out of love with EVs as their limitations become glaringly obvious and the real environmental impact has become obvious. But the woke rhetoric is still pushing an EV future as the only way that we can save the globe from global warming.

Back in January Akido Toyoda forecast that EVs would not make up more than 30% of the global auto-market with alternative drive trains making up the rest, this would in his view also include Hydrogen powered cars.

It is not only Japan that is facing this seismic shift in employment. Germany is wrestling with the post ICE forecast that could lead to a dystopic future for the labour force there. Even though Europeans seem to be turning their collective backs on the EVs offered mostly due to the lack of excitement that EVs create when it comes to driving pleasure. 

As Jeremy Clarkson said:

“An electric car is no different from a chest freezer or a microwave oven. There’s no glamour or excitement. This week on Top Chest Freezer! I think it suits the written media more.”

And don’t think that the lack of employment opportunities will be restricted to manufacturing jobs in far flung places like Japan and Germany. 

Talking to a local dealership this week he was bemoaning his inability to make money from the new EVs his brand is now touting.  “The EVs come back every twenty thousand kilometres for a change of cooling fluid and brakes. It takes twenty minutes and could be done by a trained Chimp”, he added, “There is no skill, no place to add value and no way to make some money. If this carries on we will be laying off most, if not all, of our trained mechanics. I feel sorry for them but I am a business man and I need to make money to survive”.

EVs have fewer moving parts which reduces the need for human assembly but more importantly the production of these parts is being shipped to countries that have lower labour cost and lax environmental restrictions all in a bid to drive costs down. 

This means that traditional manufacturing centres with good employment protection and strict environmental rules will undoubtedly become too expensive.

I hate to be a doom-sayer but it does feel like we are ending an era and entering into a brave new world of uncertainty when the future is an EV-only future.