Related News
Europe carmakers talk e-vehicle future
Print Edition
EUROPEAN car bosses are beginning to address the realities of mass vehicle electrification, and its consequences for jobs and profit, their minds focused by government pledges to outlaw the combustion engine.
As the latest such announcement on Monday by China added momentum to a push for zero-emission motoring, Daimler, Volkswagen and PSA Group gave details about their electric programs that could give policy-makers some pause.
Planned electric Mercedes models will initially be just half as profitable as conventional alternatives, Daimler warned — forcing the group to find savings by outsourcing more component manufacturing, which may in turn threaten German jobs.
“In-house production is almost irrelevant to the consumer,” Daimler boss Dieter Zetsche said on the eve of the Frankfurt auto show, in the midst of a German election campaign in which automotive jobs have loomed large.
The company set a target of saving 4 billion euros (US$4.8 billion) by 2025 to help fund the cost of its electric cars.
“Daimler is the first company to state explicitly how much electric vehicles are going to hurt margins,” said Bernstein analyst Max Warburton. “It was brave to go first — but of course it won’t be the last.”
Volkswagen, for its part, said it was seeking new global supplier contracts to source 50 billion euros of electric car content including batteries, which are not yet manufactured competitively in Europe.
“A company like Volkswagen must lead, not follow,” Chief Executive Matthias Mueller said.
VW diesel emission-cheating exposed by US regulators in 2015 triggered global public outrage, dozens more investigations into test-rigging by the wider industry and a push by some lawmakers to ban diesel and eventually all engines.
A Chinese official has said it was a question of when, not if, China bans fossil-fuel cars, tightening the noose around the combustion engine.
France and Britain have promised its outright abolition by 2040.
But PSA, the maker of Peugeots and Citroens, said it was concerned about the risks if consumers were left behind in the rush, and a new generation of battery cars does not sell.
“If it doesn’t gain acceptance in the market, then everybody — industry, employees and politicians — has a big problem,” PSA Chief Executive Carlos Tavares said in a pre-show interview with German weekly Bild am Sonntag.
While Tesla has carved itself a successful premium niche, electric vehicles have yet to penetrate mass markets, with the heavily subsidized exception of Norway, and still account for less than 1 percent of global car sales.
Automakers have sought to adapt to the changing tide — and in some cases distance themselves from “dieselgate” — by announcing multibillion-euro investments in electric cars, underpinned by plans to sell millions within a decade.
A year into the scandal, VW unveiled plans to develop 30 new electric cars and sell 2-3 million annually by 2025. On Monday, it upped the goal to 80 models and said it would need four times the capacity of Tesla’s “gigafactory” to supply their batteries.
Since the battery is the single biggest-value item in an electric car, however, experts point out that mass adoption would shift business and jobs from European suppliers to China.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
