The recent acceleration of the transition to electric vehicles has led to factory closures and workforce reductions at traditional auto parts manufacturers worldwide, expanding into a social issue. This has led to the need for rapid R&D transformation tailored to the times for parts manufacturers and government support for this transition.

According to foreign news agencies such as Reuters, on November 19, thousands of workers at Robert Bosch, a global auto parts manufacturer in Germany, held a protest to protest the closure of the company's factory.

Bosch's decision to close the plant is said to be due to the fact that generator regulators, a component for internal combustion engine vehicles, are no longer needed due to automakers' shift to electric vehicles.

In this regard, the German auto parts industry predicted that the transition to electric vehicle production would be difficult for traditional parts manufacturers, and that 500,000 jobs would be lost in Germany alone. Accordingly, it was argued that new R&D activities and retraining of production workers are necessary for parts manufacturers to transition into electric vehicle parts manufacturers.

It is known that similar cases are occurring not only in Germany but also in Japan, an automobile powerhouse.

In Japan, key components for internal combustion engine vehicles, such as engine parts, are reportedly no longer needed in electric vehicles, causing companies involved in these vehicles to suffer losses and are shifting their R&D efforts to survive. In particular, it is projected that approximately 300,000 jobs will be lost in Japan if the transition to electric vehicles is not addressed.

Amidst these overseas examples, the industry believes that if the domestic auto parts industry fails to adapt to electrification, small and medium-sized parts manufacturers will struggle to survive.

According to the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade, auto parts expected to disappear in the electric vehicle era include engines, camshafts, crankshafts, valves, transmissions, ignition systems, hydraulic steering systems, analog display clusters, pumps, and compressors.

The number of parts in internal combustion engine vehicles, which was around 30,000 in the past, is expected to decrease to around 19,000 due to the transition to electric vehicles, and parts manufacturers that fail to adapt to electrification are expected to be eliminated.

In the case of our country's parts manufacturers, the majority are small businesses, and the technological level also has a large gap with major advanced automotive countries such as the United States, Japan, and Germany.

In particular, they lack the capacity to invest in R&D, and according to a recent survey by the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association, parts manufacturers are investing less than 5% of their sales in R&D for future vehicles, including electric vehicles, making it expected that preparing for electrification will be even more difficult.

Of course, not all domestic auto parts manufacturers are having problems responding to electrification. Some companies are preparing for electrification with rapid response.

A domestic company that manufactures traditional mechanical compressors was considering shutting down the relevant department just a few years ago, claiming that the business was not adaptable to the electric vehicle era. However, it is known that the company has now successfully responded to electrification and is continuing to invest in R&D for new areas such as hydrogen vehicles.

On the other hand, such success stories are few and far between, and most parts manufacturers are still giving up due to lack of investment capacity.

Accordingly, the auto parts industry is unanimous in its concerns that if we continue to sit back and do nothing, we will see a chain reaction of factory closures by auto parts companies in Korea, similar to what happened in traditional advanced auto countries like Germany and Japan.

Accordingly, comprehensive measures at the government level are required to help the approximately 10,000 domestic auto parts companies adapt to electrification, and R&D and financial support are required to help parts companies become self-reliant.