Change is in the air in the transportation industry.
The biggest impetus for the change that is underway comes from the goal of countering the negative effects of climate change by changing the energy mix away from fossil fuels and towards renewables. Another effect will come from the current Coronavirus pandemic, with a massive reduction in both road and airline travel.
Road Transportation
Climate change and technological progress are moving towards a larger share of electro-mobility, be that with electrical bikes in cities or with electric cars requiring huge charging infrastructures across the country. Ten years ago, Germany set as a goal that by the year 2020 there should be one million electric cars on German roads. An assessment in 2018 projected that this goal would only be reached by 2022.
Whether this change is achievable seems implausible, considering the fact that there were only 136,617 electrical vehicles on the road in Germany by the end of 2019. Even though this represented a growth rate of 65 percent over, it won’t be sufficient to reach one million three years later, unless the growth rate continues to grow exponentially. One reason is the insufficient development of a national charging infrastructure, combined with multiple charging standards.
To push the development and interoperability of the charging infrastructure for electrical vehicles, the German federal ministry of economics is providing an extra 180 million Euros to support the integration of charging infrastructure into the energy grid.
See source here.
How Arete Publica Associates Can Help Your Business
If you are a player in electro-mobility, you may hope for incentives for the industry, for government support of innovation and R&D. In short, you will want the government to support your business case. At Arete Publica Associates, we can help you reach out to the right players in industries, in associations, in governments, and in ministries, to help you achieve your goals.
Experience and Expertise
In 2010, Arete Publica Associates founder and CEO Peter Hellmonds worked in the framework of the IT Summit of the German government to influence decision-makers towards expanding incentives for electro-mobility. Peter was co-chair of the relevant working group on e-energy and e-mobility. Peter’s extensive hands-on experience in the field of electro-mobility ensures that he’ll make the right choices for your business to thrive.
Aviation
The current and on-going Coronavirus Crisis has brought the aviation industry to an abrupt halt, and will lead to a major restructuring in the airline and surrounding industries.
As many companies have learned, there are cheaper and safer possibilities for talking with each other than meeting face to face, such as video-conferences and webinars, which have shown to be a fairly good substitute during this international health crisis created by the Coronavirus pandemic. Whether the aviation industry will ever return to its previous user levels is to be determined.
How Arete Publica Associates Can Help Your Business
Particularly affected will be projects in the planning phase or public-private partnerships in the implementation phase, when the projected passenger numbers in the business plans can no longer be safely assumed.
For projects in the planning phase, this will mean a major recalculation, and possibly re-evaluation of the economic feasibility of the envisaged project.
Worse is the situation for public-private partnerships, where for example, an airport has been financed as a project finance deal without recourse to the project sponsors, only relying on the cash flows of the project for debt service. Here it will be necessary to negotiate with the lenders, sponsors, and governments involved to achieve a change in conditions.
We’re Here to Support your Business in Tough Times
We at Arete Publica Associates can help you in your negotiations with all of these different stakeholders, be them project sponsors, lenders, or government entities, to bring them around a common cause and ensure the project can survive despite the unforeseen economic circumstances.
Experience and Expertise
Peter Hellmonds, our Founder, has concluded major project finance deals, among which was the public-private partnership for the Athens International Airport, with a 30-year duration. During this time, the private sector operates the airport before turning it over to the Greek government. Peter has been deeply involved in the legal and financial aspects, in the negotiations with a consortium of commercial banks, the European Investment Bank, the Greek government, and the German government. Read more about this project here.
For more information on our Transportation Infrastructure services, please email info@arete-publica.com.