” How much do you earn ? » It didn’t take long for an intrepid person to set foot in the dish, among the hundred or so high school students from the Ile-de-France to have taken their place in the auditorium of the City of Trades, in La Vilette, this Tuesday morning.
A little embarrassed, Arilas Djadel, project manager at Enedis, the main operator of the public electricity distribution network in France, eventually got involved. “After all, if that can motivate you”… “For an Enedis employee at bac + 2 level like me, we are between 1,800 and 2,100 euros net per month, not counting seniority”, he assesses. “It’s vaaaaaaaaaa”, he reaps in return.
“Suffice to say that there is work”
Arilas Djadel, 28, is the first to take the stage this Tuesday morning, invited by the National Association for the Development of Electric Mobility (Avere), to come and present, through his journey, the new professions of the electric vehicle. So Arilas Djadel unfolds, from his professional baccalaureatet BTS Electrotechnicse until he joined Enedis, where he is now responsible for delivering electricity to the charging stations in the parking lots of the condominiums. “In France, there are 7 million to connect, he assesses. Suffice to say that there is work. »
The six people who will succeed him on stage will not say anything else. By Olivier Toggenburger, co-founder of Park’n’Plug, specializing in the installation of charging stations, to Yann Lelong, president of Green Visionwhich gives a second life to electric car batteries, via Alexandre Gallou, work-study engineer at Deffeuille Automotivewhere he is working on the organization and optimization of repair workshops that will have to accommodate more and more electric vehicles.
New professions not so much related to mechanics…
In the end, among them, few are led to get their hands dirty and their noses under the hood. From there to say that the electric vehicle will be able to do without mechanics? Not really to listen to Anaud Sautier, director of “network” training at Renault Group. “We have 2,000 positions to fill in our workshops, he begins. And there is a major challenge, that of ensuring the skills of mechanics so that they are able to work on both electric and combustion-powered vehicles. There are still 40 million in France, and they are not going to disappear immediately. »
But it is not so much on the “mechanical” aspect that electromobility is set to disrupt the automotive sector. L’Avere even presents electric motors “as less technical than their thermal equivalents”. And in fact an asset, “because less expensive to maintain”. The real novelty of the electric car “is that it talks with its environment”, says Antoine Herteman, president of Avere. In short: for it to work, you have to develop a whole new infrastructure around it.
Second life for batteries, smart charging…
A first challenge is to mesh the territory with a sufficient network of charging stations. France is behind on its objectives, with just over 80,000 terminals open to the public in January, when the government was aiming for 100,000… by the end of 2021. But this is not the only challenge. Yann Lelong also talks about finding new outlets for the first generation of batteries which are gradually reaching the end of their life in their vehicles. “That doesn’t prevent them from still being able to provide many services, if only to store energy,” he explains. In particular that produced by so-called “intermittent” sources (solar, wind, etc.). » A key issue of the energy transition* in which Green Univers specializes.
Alexis de Jaurias, “Smart Charging” project manager at EDF, is working on yet another: the “V2G”, or how to make the electric car our energy reservoirs of tomorrow. “The idea is to allow, from specific terminals, not only to charge an electric car, but also to do the opposite, by restoring the electricity stored in the battery to the network when it may be interesting to do so. do,” he explains.
It is therefore in everything that is developing around the electric vehicle that the new professions of electromobility are nestled above all. How many job creations can we expect? “The evaluations are in progress”, answers Antoine Herteman. But it is to be expected that 40% of the French car fleet will be electric in 2035. This already gives an idea of the future hiring needs of the sector. »
Anticipating the needs of arms and brains
The whole challenge is then to anticipate them in order to best support this increase in power. Olivier Toggenburger says he is already struggling to recruit the technical profiles that Park’n’Plug often needs. “However, we receive a lot of CVs, but few candidates have followed the training specific to our professions, he observes. This is what makes these mornings so relevant. We are used to working with post-baccalaureate students, but it is also important to be able to speak to high school and college students, if only so that they become familiar with these issues, know the training that could bring them to our professions. »
They are 650 to have followed the conference this Tuesday, a small part in the auditorium, the major online and from everywhere in France. The conference was part of the Advenir Formation program of Avere and through which the association has already met 20,000 high school and college students since 2021. And does it work? To survey the students at the exit of the auditorium of the Cité des Métiers, there was reason to doubt it. There was indeed Aboubacar, 20, in final pro Melec at Blanc-Mesnil, who displayed an enthusiastic smile. “I’m going to send my CV to Enedis,” he said. Right next door and in the same class, Mohamed, 18, has not deviated from his idea of setting up on his own as an electrician. And then there are Ahmed and Elyes, 15 and 16 years old, in second pro MTNE of a Parisian high school and no more advanced on what they want to do later at the end of the morning. Finally if, both let go, mockingly, that they just want to “make money”. “But 1,800 euros is already good,” concedes Elyes.