Aftermarket June 2022

JUNE 2022 AFTERMARKET 57 www.aftermarketonline.net opportunities that there are in the aftermarket today with internal combustion engine vehicles. We need to invest that money to prepare ourselves for electrified vehicles as they become more prevalent towards the end of the decade and beyond.” Charging forward On what BorgWarner and its various arms are doing in terms of shifting their priorities and broadening out, Neil said: “Our business is increasingly focused towards electrification, as you would imagine. The company as a whole has a strategy called ‘Charging Forward’, which is intended to make us a leading player in electrified vehicles in original equipment by the end of this decade. “We already see vehicle manufacturers saying we're not going to produce any internal combustion engine vehicles after 2025 or 2030, so new cars are rapidly pivoting towards electrification. “However, the transition is going to take much longer in the aftermarket, and even by 2040 there will still be a fairly significant number of internal combustion engine vehicles in operation, certainly in heavy commercial vehicles where the internal combustion engine may well still be the solution people turn to.” “Our challenge is to manage the balance between what's coming and what remains of the ICE vehicle parc. That's really where we have to focus to manage that challenge correctly. “While there is the shift to EVs, the average age of cars has actually increased. There is this pull towards the new; ‘Let's get everybody training on EVs’. However, businesses still need to keep staff familiar with the older technology because they're going to keep seeing it. Our aim is to ensure that we satisfy the needs of our customers. We don't want to walk away from need that exists to serve need that is coming. We want to balance the two, and make sure we satisfy our customers across both technologies” Left: Neil Fryer Practical experience We asked how BorgWarner is looking to help its customers pull off this juggling act: “There are a few things we're doing. We are focusing on electrification in our business, and we are bringing those parts that we have into our aftermarket range. If there is demand, our customers can access them. We are offering training courses in electric and hybrid vehicles. These can be taken at the Delphi Technologies training centre in Leamington Spa.” Readers with very long memories, or very large Aftermarket back-issue collections, may recall Aftermarket’s Editor doing the two- day course at the training centre. The course provides those who successfully complete it with IMI Level 2 and Level 3 qualifications in EVs and hybrids. The write-up on this is in the February 2020 issue. While everyone is pleased to be returning to in-person training, the pandemic really spurred the development of online training. Neil observed: “One of the things that we've spent our time doing during the pandemic was to set up online training so that we can offer technicians the opportunity to benefit from online training and face-to-face training.” Neil said the company recognises that technicians see the value that both kinds of training offer: “In a lot of our training now, there’s six hours of preparation to do online before you come to the bricks-and-mortar training centre and actually get the chance to do these things on a real vehicle and understand what it means from a practical point of view. We’ve moved towards leveraging technology to make our training easier and more accessible to people from an online point of view, but also then to offer them the real practical experience of doing the operations in a training centre. “Of course, you may be trained today, but it might be a month before you actually get the opportunity in your normal work situation to do a particular repair or to work on a particular car. Meanwhile, you can use that online training facility to refresh yourself when the opportunity actually occurs in your real workplace. This is something where we received a positive response from our customers.” Philosophy Neil has obviously been working in the industry for some time. We wondered what BorgWarner offers that other companies do not, and if that gives the company an opportunity to help the sector: “Part of our philosophy as BorgWarner is what we call product leadership. That's very important in our businesses; That we are a leading producer of the products that we have in our portfolio. Product leadership brings a real benefit to our aftermarket customers in the sense that you can rely on us to be at the forefront of what's happening in technological development.” Neil concluded: “As the aftermarket business of BorgWarner, we want to help our customers deal with the technological challenges that are coming, and to be their partner, helping them be ready to deal with the aftermarket of the future.” We have the next five years to make money out of the internal combustion engine. We need to invest that money to prepare ourselves for electrified vehicles ”