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Bosses at two of Europe’s biggest car manufacturers have called an acceleration of Europe’s transition to electric vehicles as tensions continue in the EU over the race to ban the traditional combustion engine.
Carlos Tavares, the chief executive of Stellantis, which owns the Peugeot, Vauxhall, Jeep and Citroën brands, and Martin Sanger, the sales chief of Volkswagen passenger cars, used the Paris motor show to warn those, including political parties on the right, fighting the switch to green driving.
Tavares said prolonging the transition was a “trap” that would leave car manufacturers with heavier costs on the production line. “Making a transition for longer is a big trap,” he told the Financial Times. “When you make a longer transition, in fact, you don’t replace the old world by the new one. You add up the new world to the old.”
The next five to 10 years are considered make or break for some of Europe’s biggest car manufacturers, with the EU already trying to limit the damage from competition from China with the imposition of tariffs totalling up to 45% on EV imports.
Several manufacturers have already scrapped their original plans to phase out the traditional internal combustion engine as they battle to meet a 2035 ban on new vehicles equipped with one.
Sander, who is head of Volkswagen’s head of sales and marketing of the company’s passenger car business, also urged governments to move faster, not slower, towards the end of combustion engines.
“I hope that we’re going to see clear commitments and signals from politicians that the future is electric. And then I’m convinced we also see customer demand picking up,” he told the FT at the Paris car show, the biggest industry event in the calendar.
Tavares, under pressure after a profit warning in September amid weak demand in the US, embarked on a media blitz on Monday, speaking at five events.
Interviewed on the French radio station RTL, Tavares declined to rule out job cuts and said keeping up with Chinese competition and staying profitable could require plant closures or off-loading brands. Earlier this year, the carmaker warned that plants in the UK were at risk.
“We will need to make big efforts,” Tavares said, adding that it was up to the group’s customers to decide which brands had a future and which may be divested.
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Stella Li, the executive vice-president of BYD, the Chinese conglomerate, criticised the proposed introduction of tariffs by the EU in November as European and Chinese carmakers went head to head at the motor show.
“The problem is the very high price and that the EU now charges tariffs,” she told the Reuters news agency.
“Who pays the bill? Consumers. So this makes people very concerned. It will stop poorer people from buying,” she warned, adding that the tariffs proposed for BYD vehicles were “not a fair judgment”.
Nine Chinese brands including BYD and Leapmotor are unveiling their latest models at this year’s event, according to the Paris auto show chief executive, Serge Gachot. That is the same number as in 2022 when they made up almost half the brands present.