The transition from the production model related to Electric and Connected Vehicles (EVCs) presents unprecedented opportunities and challenges in the automotive sector’s history. On the one hand, the automotive industry is facing a global reconfiguration, which threatens to significantly change the map of the sector. On the other hand, the challenge that worries the most in the public debate is related to employment: by having fewer pieces, it is believed that the VEC will almost automatically result in the disappearance of many jobs. Without denying the problems linked to employment entailed by this transition, this coordinated project proposes to approach the problem from a perspective that goes beyond the technological determinism that predominates in the debate. We claim that a productive model emerges both through the intervention and interaction of actors, institutions and market mechanisms.
More specifically, the TRANSVEC project seeks to understand the characteristics, governance, and impact of the production model that is currently emerging in the Spanish automotive sector. The identification of the new production model and its positioning in the international context makes it possible to identify (new) dimensions of inequalities related to the just transition to electric and connected vehicles (ECVs), inequalities that can arise both between countries and territories and within the workforce. The multiple dimensions involved in this transition and their complex interactions require the adoption of a comprehensive approach involving different perspectives and disciplines. The coordinated project captures the complexity and multidimensional nature of the just transition to ECV, by focusing on dimensions related to productive reconfiguration, transition governance, employment and industrial relations.
The main novelty of the coordinated project is the combination of these different perspectives on the issue of inequalities in the new production model. Therefore, this coordinated project allows us to reach a level of depth and scope of the new production model that would not have been possible by analysing them separately. In this way, we will not only shed light on the emergence of new production models and the dialectical relations between state, capital and labour, but it also has a very applied character, generating useful knowledge for the actors involved and capitalising on the opportunities that the transition presents (specifically in the field of the PERTE VEC and the Just Transition Strategy).
Start date:Â 01/09/2025
End date:Â 31/08/28
Funding: Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN), Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER)
Reference:PID2024-155223OB-C21
Principal investigator: Óscar Molina
Team:Â Pablo Sanz de Miguel (Universidad de Zaragoza), Alejandro Godino (Universidad de Sevilla), Matteo Mandelli (European Social Observatory), Sander Junte, Andrea Moreno (Universidad de Oviedo)
