How Leading CPOs and OEMs Are Turning EV Supply Chain Pressure Into Competitive Positioning
The global electric vehicle industry is entering a phase where volume growth is no longer the most important number. With 21.6 million electric vehicles (EVs) sold in 2025 and 18% year-on-year growth recorded, the foundational question of whether battery electric vehicles (BEVs) would achieve mass-segment scale has been answered.
What OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, charging point operators (CPOs), and technology companies are now working through is a more demanding set of challenges: rare earth supply chains creating active production disruptions, EV charging infrastructure falling further behind fleet growth, and the latest converging technology shifts. At the same time, investment decisions are now more focused across battery chemistry, vehicle architecture, motor design, thermal management, software platforms, and charging systems.
Frost & Sullivan’s latest Growth Webinar, “Growth Opportunities for Electric Mobility Dominance: Top 10 Megatrends Defining the Global Electric Vehicle Industry,” brings together data, megatrends, and technology perspectives to help industry leaders identify highest-value opportunities and build the competitive positioning to capture them.
Key Takeaways
The session brought together the following growth experts:
Rory Brogan
Founder and CEO, Torev Motors
Prajyot Sathe
Research Director, Mobility, Frost & Sullivan
Disruptive Technology: Transforming EV Platform Strategy
- Battery chemistry is diversifying well beyond lithium-ion. Solid-state batteries are drawing committed investment from virtually every major OEM, while sodium-ion batteries are progressing from research into early commercial deployment, particularly in cost-sensitive and emerging segments.
- Once confined to premium and performance segments, 800V EV architecture/platforms are now entering the mass segment, with projections estimating a near 55%-45% split between 800V and 400V by 2032 across EV-mature regions. The architecture delivers 10 to 15% weight reduction over 400V systems, enables lighter wiring, and critically, creates the platform headroom for ultra-fast and megawatt-level charging.
- By 2031, virtually every new vehicle sold in Europe and North America will come connected to the internet as a standard feature. Software-defined vehicle (SDV) architectures are enabling OEMs to push over-the-air (OTA) software updates, deliver AI-driven predictive maintenance, and offer subscription-based features, converting one-time vehicle sales into ongoing digital revenue streams.
- Electric motor technology is accelerating away from rare earth magnet dependence; a shift that has moved from engineering preference to supply chain imperative.
Are you aligning your platform investments against these headwinds to gain a competitive edge?
The Rare Earth Problem Is Disrupting Production Right Now
The magnet supply chain story is one that this webinar, laid out with precision and urgency. Since January 2025, neodymium pricing has risen by close to 150%, continuing a historical pattern of sharp spikes and retreats that has long made rare earth magnet procurement a structurally fragile input for high-volume EV motor programs.
Industry leaders are developing an axial flux wound rotor motor that addresses this challenge directly by eliminating permanent magnets entirely. The resulting motor delivers double the torque density and triple the continuous torque density of a conventional radial flux permanent magnet motor at approximately half the active material cost. The motor is currently being validated with the US Department of Defense and is scaling toward OEM-relevant production volumes.
Click here to watch the full webinar
How Leading CPOs Are Turning Infrastructure Gaps Into Competitive Advantage
- China is operating at a ratio of one connector for every 11 EVs on the road, supported by 4.3 million connectors across approximately 600,000 locations.
- The United States, by contrast, has 316,000 connectors serving 7.6 million EVs: a ratio of one connector for every 24 vehicles.
- Germany, France, the UK, and Canada are all recording deteriorating ratios as EV fleet growth outpaces infrastructure deployment year after year.
- The total global connector count is expected to cross 7 million by end of 2026, but with EV sales heading toward 24.7 million units in the same year, the ratio pressure is not easing.
CPO investment decisions across both European and North American regions are being shaped simultaneously by capital expenditure constraints, roaming ecosystem interoperability requirements, and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) integration mandates, all of which are converging to make infrastructure positioning one of the most consequential strategic decisions across the EV value chain over the next five years.
Expert’s Corner
“The EV industry is not running out of momentum, it is running into a more complex phase where technology decisions, supply chain exposure, and infrastructure gaps are becoming interdependent. The organizations building strategies across all of these dimensions simultaneously are the ones leading this transformation through 2030.”
Prajyot Sathe, Research Director, Mobility (EV & Powertrain), Frost & Sullivan
Top Growth Opportunities
- Magnet-free Motor Development: With rare earth supply chain disruption creating real production risk, wound rotor and axial flux motor architectures are gaining traction as both a cost reduction strategy and an SDV platform capability, making early investment in this space a clear competitive differentiator.
- 800V EV Architecture and 5-in-1 electric Axle (eAxle) Platform Scaling: As 800V adoption crosses from premium into mass-market vehicle segments, OEMs and suppliers investing now in compact, integrated eAxle platforms are compressing development timelines and improving deployment economics across multiple vehicle classes simultaneously.
- Ultra-Fast and Megawatt Charging Infrastructure: The upgrade cycle from 150kW to 350kW-plus direct current (DC) infrastructure is already underway across major CPO networks, and megawatt charging development is opening a new investment tier for high-utilization commercial vehicle and fleet applications.
- Software-defined vehicle (SDV) Monetization: OEMs that are building over-the-air (OTA) update capability, features-on-demand subscriptions, and AI-driven personalization into their platforms are converting single vehicle transactions into recurring software revenue streams that compound in value across the full ownership lifecycle.
- Sodium-Ion Battery Commercialization: Cost-effective sodium-ion chemistry is creating early production positioning opportunities in fleet, entry-level, and application in emerging regions where Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) and Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC) cost structures remain a barrier to adoption.
Which of these growth opportunities align with your 2030 roadmap?
To access the free on-demand recording of this growth webinar, click here.
Alternatively, connect directly with Frost & Sullivan’s Mobility Growth Experts for customized opportunities, technology strategies, and best practices tailored to your organization.
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