EV Demand is Driving Sales for Robotics Automation in the US and Globally

Electric Vehicles coming to the market from both new and older more established car marques are driving a new wave of investment in the automotive industry. EV’s are much simpler to build than tradition internal combustion engine cars as they obviously do not require the petrol- or diesel-powered engine itself and the complicated series of connections it requires with the rest of the chassis. Also, the trend towards software-defined car ‘options’ means there is less physical variability needed between cars of the same type in the same factory.

Together, these factors mean that even the older manufacturers with hundreds of manufacturing plants between them globally have realized the need for new state of the art manufacturing lines. Automated manufacturing processes can greatly reduce the current cost of EV’s which cost more than internal combustion engine cars due to their constituent components even though they are simpler to build.

The North American robotics market set all-time records in both robots sold and value in 2022. According to a report from the Association for Advancing Automation (A3), North American companies ordered 44,196 robots valued at $2.38 billion in 2022, representing increases of 11% and 18%, respectively, over 2021, the previous record.

Much of this growth was driven by the US automotive industry which ordered 23,807 robots, +42% yoy in 2022. While orders from non-automotive industries slowed, unique applications continued to emerge in industries like food service (cooking and serving robots) and construction (dry walling robots).