Why the IMI took centre stage at MOVE 2023

Billed as the world’s most important urban mobility event, MOVE returned to the UK at the end of June, with two action-packed days at London’s ExCeL centre, and the IMI was at the centre of the event.

“MOVE is an impressive event which brings together every strand of the ACES (autonomous, connected, electric and shared) piece,” said IMI CEO Steve Nash. “No other event covers every element of what we’re trying to achieve by 2030-35.

“You turn up with one opinion and have to moderate it after listening to all the different speakers. We learnt from last year there’s so much going on concurrently it's worth having several people there, to cover all the bases.”

Steve Scofield, Head of Business Development, and Mark Armitage, Head of Membership Products and Services, were both in attendance, supported by members of their respective teams. It meant the IMI had a presence at all the key sessions including, in the Autonomous Vehicles theatre, presentations by Zenzic, on the role of SMEs, National Highways, on future-proofing our road network, and The Law Commission, on strategies for the safe deployment of self-driving tech. 

Later in the day, Neil Kennet (FIMI) moderated a panel on software defined vehicles (SDVs) featuring Patrick Blume, Head of Product for Urban Mobility at Mercedes-Benz, John Wall, Senior Vice-President at BlackBerry (with its QNX system embedded in over 235 million vehicles worldwide), and Marcus Welz, Vice-President of Smart Mobility at Hyundai Motor Europe.

With serious points - notably the near-future ability to reduce road traffic collisions by up to 80% - and lighter moments, we delved into cybersecurity, common codebase, OTA updates, verification and validation, changing car sales models, in-car personalisation, smart city connectivity and mobility-as-a-service (MAAS).

Meanwhile, in the Auto Manufacturing and Skills theatre, Steve Nash and Rebecca Smith, from the SMMT, engaged in a lively panel discussion, “Skills Shortage: How are automotive workers upskilling for the EV world?”, moderated by Nick Gibbs, from Automotive News Europe. “We talked about how 800,000 people work in automotive in the UK, of which just under 200,000 are inside the factory gates and 600,000 are outside,” said Nash.

“The vehicle manufacture’s role is critical and changing out of all recognition as we move away from building engines and gearboxes to building electric motors, batteries and so on. My main point was that the other 600,000 people are equally profoundly affected, and need to be properly qualified. Having seen two million apprenticeship starts achieved under the Cameron coalition government, the Conservatives pledged support for three million quality apprenticeships by 2020. In reality we are yet to get back to two million, and post-Brexit, post-pandemic, it’s even more challenging.

“If you've spent your entire life working on internal combustion engines, you’re not automatically qualified to start working on EVs, hydrogen-powered cars or other rapidly emerging technologies. It’s not just a variation on a theme, it’s completely different. IMI TechSafe is the de facto licence to practice, meeting the requirements of the Electricity at Work regulations.

“We've calculated that we need just over 100,000 people EV qualified by 2030, and roughly 130,000 by 2032. We've made good progress on closing the EV skills gap, but we need to keep up that effort and make ADAS training more of a focus, given that every new car now has a minimum level of automated driver assistance. We have to get to a single recognised standard and drive continual professional development (CPD) to keep the knowledge up-to-date.

“MOVE is a great showcase for just how fast the industry is changing, with vehicles for specific tasks rather than trying to be all things to all people. You can see certain cars like Microlino’s reimagined all-electric bubble car becoming classless again, like the ‘60s when you were as likely to see a celebrity in a Mini as a Rolls-Royce.

“Toyota’s recent 900-mile range by 2028 announcement is a gamechanger, with major implications for those designing charging networks. The German authorities are pushing Europe to become more technology agnostic, to look at efuels as well as EV, to be less reliant on Chinese batteries. I think we've all understood that hydrogen probably has its first applications at the heavy end of the market.

“It was very interesting to see OEMs and other key players talking to the companies in the start-up zone, some of which already have impressive prototypes. I saw an electric bicycle-based vehicle there last year and saw one in central London the other day doing deliveries. Such innovations change perceptions, helping us to promote the many attractive careers in cutting-edge mobility”.