Auto: Stellantis boss railed against the EU’s electric car strategy

automobile
Stellantis boss railed against the EU’s electric car strategy

Stellantis boss Carlos Tavares criticizes the EU’s strategy for the transition to electric vehicles. Photo: Carlos Osorio/AP/dpa

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The Portuguese Carlos Tavares trims the car company Stellantis, which was founded a year ago, for the production of electric cars. But he would have preferred a different path.

The head of the Stellantis car group has sharply criticized the EU’s electric car strategy. The political guidelines would not have given the manufacturers any creative freedom to bring in other ideas, Tavares explained in a “Handelsblatt” interview (Wednesday).

The electric drives are 50 percent more expensive than the combustion engines and are driving up the prices for new cars. This increases the risk that the middle class will no longer be able to buy cars and that the state coffers will be overwhelmed.

The head of Europe’s second largest car company after Volkswagen questioned the positive contribution of e-cars to climate protection: “We will only know in 10 or 15 years what results electrification will actually bring in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.” You have to talk about the CO2 footprint of the battery, because with the European energy mix, an electric car first has to drive 70,000 kilometers to compensate for the poor CO2 balance of battery production. The head of the Opel mother named high-performance hybrid cars, which would have brought an immediate CO2 advantage, as a faster and cheaper innovation option.

Warning of social consequences

Tavares called for the electrical subsidies to be maintained until at least 2025. Stellantis has already started to transform all factories. “Without a gradual transition, the social consequences will be great,” Tavares warned. “And we are not alone: ​​we have a whole system of suppliers around us who have to act just as quickly as we do.”

The Stellantis boss also defended the restructuring of the manufacturer Opel, which was taken over in 2017. “A lot of what we have done at Opel since 2017 has been criticized. But what doesn’t bother anyone is that Opel is now making money.” The goal remains to make the German locations more autonomous. At the end of the year, IG Metall had prevented the Eisenach and Rüsselsheim plants from being spun off from the German Opel company.

According to its own statements, the group with the main brands Fiat and Peugeot is planning investments of more than 30 billion euros by 2025. At the moment, 33 electrified vehicles are available, and eight battery-electric vehicles are expected to come onto the market in the next year and a half. Stellantis plans to present a long-term strategic plan on March 1st.

dpa

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