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 drive 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 boss of the second-largest car company in Europe 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 e-car first has to drive 70,000 kilometers to compensate for the poor CO2 balance of battery production. As a quicker and cheaper innovation option, the boss of the Opel parent named efficient hybrid cars, which would have brought an immediate CO2 advantage.
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 2017 takeover manufacturer Opel. “A lot of what we’ve 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 Rsselsheim plants from being hived 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.
Stellantis shares were initially in the red on EURONEXT Paris on Wednesday, but are now temporarily up 0.51 percent to EUR 19.20.
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