Russia Economic Outlook – April 2021

Maxim Sakov, Market Consultant-Russia for Power Systems Research, discusses his Q1 2021 economic outlook for Russia in this episode of PSR PowerTALK.

Transcript

Welcome to the PSR PowerTALK podcast, produced by Power Systems Research.

00:06 Emiliano Marzoli:

From Power Systems Research, hello everyone. I’m Emiliano Marzoli, editor of PSR PowerTALK, and today I will discuss the economic outlook for Russia with Maxim Sakov, our marketing consultant in Moscow. Maxim provides our clients with economic and production forecasts for Russia each quarter. And thank you for joining us today, Maxim.

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Rural Economy Helping Ride Out COVID Impact

With extended lockdowns in most parts of India, the production of all non-essentials was at a halt or at minuscule levels in April and May until the economy was unlocked. This move reduced demand in the short-term, but owing to intrinsic domestic demand, we are optimistic about future business expectations

Aditya Kondejkar

Better Outlook of Rural Economy

However, hope has arisen from India’s rural part as the agriculture sector appears to have been relatively less impacted by the lockdown. This part of the country never truly went into a harsh lockdown, and thus procurement, harvest, and consumer activities have remained unaffected. Farming continued during the lockdown, especially for rice and wheat cultivation. The return of migrant workers caused a surplus of agricultural labor. This resulted in the fact – more land was brought under cultivation than ever before. As a result, the country has witnessed a good season of rabi harvest.

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Q2 2021 Power Systems Research Truck Production Index (PSR-TPI) climbs 193.5%

St. Paul, MN (July 12, 2021)— The Power Systems Research Truck Production Index (PSR-TPI) increased 193.5% year-over-year (Q2 2020 to the Q2 2021), moving from 46 to 135. For the three-month period ended June 30, 2021, (Q1 2021 to Q2 2021) the TPI climbed 15.4%, increasing from 117 to 135.

The PSR-TPI measures truck production globally and across six regions: North America, China, Europe, South America, Japan & Korea and Emerging Markets.

This data comes from OE Link™, the proprietary database maintained by Power Systems Research.

Global Index. Overall, medium and heavy truck demand will finish the year on a strong note and continued strength is expected into 2022.  On-going supply chain disruptions will continue to impact production throughout the rest of the year and possibly into 2022.

All Regions. Except for China, all regions are expected to experience solid commercial vehicle demand growth this year and into 2022.  Chinese heavy truck demand is expected to decline this year primarily due to the implementation of the China VI emission regulations that adds cost to the vehicles but no significant improvement in fuel economy.

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Ammonia-Powered Fuel Cell Developed for Deep Sea Shipping

ShipFC is the project financed by the Union European program Horizon 2020 and Hydrogen Europe aiming to prove that fuel cells powered by green ammonia can meet the strict IMO standards of zero-emission Deep Sea shipping.

Currently, a 100% zero-emission solution is not available in this segment. Batteries do not last longue enough with a size that can fit a ship onboard, and Hydrogen technology has some other challenging issues to resolve. Alternative fuel solutions are promising but still need to be tested, confirmed, and approved by DNA.

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CONEXPO Batteries Are Coming. We Saw Lots of Them at CONEXPO and GIE+Expo

Recently I was at a dinner with visiting members of my family discussing the noble transition that many manufacturers are making from producing their typical goods to producing essential goods and equipment for the coronavirus fight.

Tyler Wiegert
Tyler Wiegert

One that came up was Tesla’s transition to making ventilators, and one member of my family began to say that they wouldn’t want a Tesla ventilator if they were hospitalized, because it would probably catch fire and explode.

My fiance is in medicine rather than in our industry, so she took that to be a serious comment about the risk of ventilators sparking in an oxygen-rich environment. But it quickly became clear that this critic just has a deep and abiding skepticism of battery technology, because they repeatedly brought the conversation back to battery fires and cars exploding, despite there having been only 14 reported cases of Tesla vehicles catching fire between 2013 and 2019, with most of those happening after accidents.

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Most Regions Will Post 20%+ Growth in Truck Production

Chris Fisher
Chris Fisher

Editor’s Note: This is an updated report from the Q2 2021 Truck Production Index report produced by Chris Fisher and Jim Downey, Vice President-Global Data Products, in July 2021.

Question: What is the global truck production picture? What is the outlook?

PSR Opinion: Overall, medium and heavy truck demand will finish the year on a strong note, and continued strength is expected into 2022.  On-going supply chain disruptions will continue to impact production throughout the rest of the year and likely into 2022.

Question: What kind of global production volume do you expect for this year?

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Near Term Recession Fears Recede in North America

SUMMARY.  The North American economy remained stable in 2019 and pure economic conditions as well as fundamentals in the region were favorable. Most industries performed very well, and the short-term outlook remains stable to flat for most market segments. However, we see many new developments that could suggest a shift in the trend.

Yosyf Sheremeta
Yosyf Sheremeta

Consumer confidence declined slightly in December, following a moderate increase in November.  The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index stood at 126.5 in December, 1.4 points higher than in September 2019. 

Per Lynn Franco, Senior Director of Economic Indicators at The Conference Board: “While consumers’ assessment of current conditions improved, their expectations declined, driven primarily by a softening in their short-term outlook regarding jobs and financial prospects. While the economy hasn’t shown signs of further weakening, there is little to suggest that growth, and in particular consumer spending, will gain momentum in early 2020.”

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Edge Computing Makes America More Efficient

John Krzesicki talks with Carrie Goetz about the trends in edge computing, a movement that shifts data processing from the cloud to local data centers closer to the applications.

Transcript

Welcome to the PSR PowerTALK podcast, produced by Power Systems Research.

00:06 John Krzesicki

Hello, my name is John Krzesicki with Power Systems Research. I’m a business development manager for the US and with me today I have Carrie Goetz who is a fractional CTO for multiple companies. She’s been in the business for many years. She was also voted as being one of the most influential women in the tech industry in 2020.

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Personal Mobility Segment Lacks Sparkle, Stocks, Demand Drop

Aditya Kondejkar

Passenger vehicles sales dropped 41% to around 160k units in September as the shortage of semi-conductors disrupted production at most of the OEMs. OEMs are facing supply shortages rather than demand problems. We are seeing robust customer demand as increasing preferences towards personal mobility increase.

2-wheel sales declined 17% to 1.5 million units in September. The Motorcycle segment is heavily impacted as sales is dropped 23% in September. Owing to high vehicle acquisition costs and high fuel prices, inquiries regarding new vehicles have dropped significantly compared with last years’ level.

“Indian automobile industry continues to face new challenges, said Kenichi Ayukawa, President, SIAM. “While on one hand, we are seeing a revival in vehicle demand, on the other hand, shortage of semi-conductor chips is causing a major concern for the industry. Many members have curtailed their production plans.”

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PSR Analysis: So, we believe the on road segments have witnessed a V-shaped recovery since the second wave of COVID-19 and won’t see a regular festive season spike for this year.   PSR

Aditya Kondejkar is Research Analyst – South Asia Operations, for Power Systems Research