The Transition to Electrified Vehicles: Evaluating the Labor Demand of Manufacturing Conventional Versus Battery Electric Vehicle Powertrains

"30% fewer workers for electric vehicle assembly": harbinger or myth?

“…With the BEV transition, these workers face job losses but also the opportunity for re-employment in other parts of the BEV value chain. The most immediate source of worker re-employment is in battery cell manufacturing which accounts for up to 75% of the total labor intensity for producing a BEV powertrain [19]. Employment data on existing BEV OEMs also suggests that battery cell manufacturing including pack assembly can increase labor needed per BEV by over 50% (Figure A2 and Table A2) 5 .…”

“…Cotterman et al [19] reported labor intensity per BEV powertrain assuming a 60kWh battery pack which varied depending on the data source and whether the labor was broken down between cell and pack/module assembly. For data sources where this breakdown was available, labor intensity ranged between 11 to 16 hours per 60kWh for industry data sources and 6 to 15 hours per 60kWh for public data sources.…”

“…A study by the Boston Consulting Group found that BEV labor requirements are about 1% less than those for ICEVs after accounting for all production process differences [18]. A study by found that the labor intensity required for BEV powertrain manufacturing can be more than twice as high as that for ICEVs if battery cell manufacturing is included and when industry shop floor data is used instead of academic models [19,20]. The lack of consensus from these existing reports underscores the difficulty of estimating the future trajectory of BEV jobs based solely on technical assumptions [21] and expert judgment [22].…”