Kickstart: GM and the EV future

How real are dreams of an electric vehicle future, and what do those dreams mean to plastics suppliers to the auto industry? That EV future may be inevitable if General Motors is right about its plan to end traditional vehicle production by 2035.

I was at the auto show in Detroit in 2007 when GM introduced what was then a concept car, the all-electric Volt sedan.

That car was as much a prototype test for plastics as it was for the electric drivetrain. Engineers from what was then GE Plastics — now part of Sabic — worked closely with GM on the Volt. Nearly every exterior part of the Volt was made with thermoplastics.

"[Plastics are] now part of their understanding of materials," a GE executive said at the time. "They've put it into their palette.''

When the Volt came out as an official GM offering a few years later, the thermoplastic outer body was gone as GM put its energy into the electric drivetrain, but plastics were still key.

The Volt's battery system had 135 individual prismatic cells, using 37 pounds of nylon, for just one example of the importance of plastics for one key vehicle. The number of cells in EVs has only increased since then.

So you can imagine what kind of role plastics will play for a GM that is going all in on EVs, with an announcement Jan. 28 that it would end gasoline-powered engine production by 2035. As Don Loepp notes, there is still a lot of traditional auto production that will be happening between now and 2035, but industry leaders believe a change is on the way.

For another example of the push and pull on the auto supply base for electric vehicles, consider the executive order signed by President Joe Biden on Jan. 25.

The order calls for the federal government to prioritize buying American-made products, including American-made electric vehicles as agencies upgrade their auto fleet.

"The federal government," Biden said, "also owns an enormous fleet of vehicles, which we're going to replace with clean, electric vehicles made right here in America by American workers, creating millions of jobs — a million autoworker jobs in clean energy — and vehicles that are net-zero emissions."

It's been a tough few months for buyers of polypropylene.

In December, strong demand, feedstock shortages and a production stoppage at major suppliers pushed PP prices up by 14 cents per pound. Now prices have climbed another 13 cents, senior reporter Frank Esposito writes.

In total, PP prices have climbed nearly 50 cents in the past nine months.

One unexpected issue in rising prices? Less travel and reduced gasoline consumption due to the pandemic, Frank writes. Since propylene monomer is a byproduct at oil refineries, it's impacting PP production. Natural gas, also a key core material for PP in the U.S., produces less propylene than crude oil.

There are other price increases, too. You can check out Frank's story here.