It is the journey of hope that of Adolfo Urso, the minister of Made in Italy in Brussels – from 25 September – to ask to bring forward the feasibility test of stopping internal combustion engines in 2035 to the next few weeks. And perhaps postpone this date. However, there must be a certain antipathy from the CEO of Stellantis, the group which also includes what remains of Fiat, because the Portuguese Carlos Tavares raised his voice: «A postponement? It would be madness.” He does it to stand out from his competitors or perhaps because, having become a dealer for the Chinese Leapmotor, he doesn’t want to lose the deal. It’s a strange fate for the group that boasted of making the most beautiful cars in the world and is reduced to selling other people’s cars. But the contradictions of Tavares, and of his predecessor John Elkann, do not stop here. Among European manufacturers they are the only ones to support the limits imposed.
Tavares, speaking at Mirafiori where he announced yet another layoff – saying however that he won’t do like Volkswagen which threatens layoffs because he thought about it first – he also allowed himself a joke: perhaps climate change has disappeared? He holds out on electric, but closes Mirafiori because the battery-operated Fiat 500 isn’t selling, as are the Maseratis, and if he does a bit of math he realizes his Italian “failure”. Fca – the merger between Fiat and Chrysler – had 74 thousand employees with Sergio Marchionne, today Stellantis with the Tavares-Elkann duo has less than 42 thousand, but half of them are in cash. And we no longer talk about the gigafactory that was supposed to build the batteries for Fiat. Minister Urso’s initiative is instead encouraged by Confindustria which, together with president Emanuele Orsini, has highlighted the very serious risks that the components sector is running.
It is estimated that 70 thousand jobs and at least 2,200 companies are at risk. Other countries are lining up with Italy: Germany, pursued by manufacturers, Spain even though Chinese brand factories are about to open there, Poland which is today the workshop of Europe. The fear that everyone has – Tavares invited those who make components to move to reduce costs by 40 percent under penalty of being out of the market compared to Asians – is that the factories will move to Tunisia, Morocco, Turkey where Recep Tayyip Erdogan is preparing a maxi tax relief plan. Europe, on the other hand, imposes ecological diktats, but doesn’t give a penny.
The electric car has been widely subsidized with incentives – Stellantis would like them in droves and without interruption – but as soon as they ran out, demand stopped again. For the States it is a bad deal: they have to give incentives for the purchase of charging stations and renewable energy to power them and they do not collect excise duties on fuel. Hence the Italian idea of stopping the carousel. The regulation on the ban on internal combustion engines – ratified in March 2023 with Poland voting against and Italy, Romania and Bulgaria abstaining – provides for a compatibility check for the abandonment of diesel and petrol only for the next one. But the data is dramatic already now. In the first six months of the year there was an increase in registrations of 4.4 percent, but in July the increase was just 0.4 percent; compared to 2019 – the pre-pandemic year – 22.9 percent of machines were missing. The slowdown is all about battery-powered cars which went from 14.3 percent of the market to 13.8. In August – again at a continental level – sales of full electrics collapsed by 36 percent compared to -16.5 of endothermics.
Ursula von der Leyen in her speech for the encore presidency of the Commission in paying duty to support the Greens confirmed all the objectives of the Green deal, including. Except that the industry is broken. The head of Deutsche Bank’s research office Eric Heymann had prophesied it: 840 thousand jobs will be lost. Volkswagen has announced that it will close three factories: it must fire 15,000 workers within the year because it no longer sells battery-powered vehicles. It lost half a million cars sold. Audi is preparing to stop the historic factory in Belgium and the workers in protest have confiscated the keys to 200 cars as a symbolic gesture, while Volvo – owned by China – is abandoning the full elecritic program by diverting investments to hybrids. They understood that the uncertainty of supplies, the high cost of purchase and management are psychological barriers that are difficult for consumers to overcome. BMW had to recall one and a half million cars due to brake defects, but also 140,000 fully electric Mini Cooper SEs because the batteries caught fire.
It is clear that Europe has decided on the wave of an unrealistic ideological drive, but has not given manufacturers time to perfect the models, has not thought about equipping itself with battery factories, it does not have rare earths to produce accumulators and, above all, it has underestimated the infrastructure gap. To satisfy the demand for mobility with electric cars, at least 3.5 million charging stations are needed by 2030. At the moment there are 630 thousand in Europe, of which 70 percent are concentrated in Germany, Holland and France. To reach the target, 410 thousand public charging stations should be installed per year at a rate of 8 thousand per week. Until last month the “speed” was under 3 thousand new charging stations per week. The judgment of Gian Primo Quagliano, president of the Promotor study center, one of the most authoritative automotive observers in the world, is almost a sentence: «An important part of the responsibility for the current crisis is to be found in the EU policy which has imposed heavy investments on automotive industry in the area and which in the presence of a lack of public interest in electric cars has determined the need for states to support demand with significant incentives. Furthermore, the conditions have been created for a strong penetration of Chinese electric cars into the EU market.” But now we are at the point that even the Chinese no longer sell. The numbers are merciless: Byd minus 89 percent and minus 38 since the beginning of the year, Great Wall on the same line, MG minus 76 percent even if it has recovered a plus 14 percent since January.
The market for battery-powered supercars is also very bad: the Porsche Taycan made less than 51 percent compared to the first half of last year and there are already second thoughts about the electric Macanthe. And even in America things are no better: Ford and General Motors have cut back on their electric ambitions and doubled the production of diesel cars and pick-ups and Hertz, the world’s main rental company, has sold off its entire electric fleet due to lack of request. Hence another request that comes to Europe from the manufacturers united in Acea (the two main ones are Volkswagen and Renault): to postpone the production limits of diesel and petrol cars. By 2025, according to the European regulation, we must produce over 35 percent of battery-powered cars. If a builder doesn’t reach the target, he pays the fine. Acea has currently estimated the cost of this new tax at 15 billion euros which would blow up even Volkswagen (and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is very worried) and knows perfectly well that without solid demand it is impossible to reach that level of car production battery operated. So he hopes that Brussels will move the minimum threshold for stack machines by at least two years, despite Tavares saying that the rules cannot be changed on the fly because Stellantis is already ready for the challenge. In truth, it is not clear whether it is ready because it produces less or because it hopes to sell more. But anyway, it seems clear that the electric car doesn’t belong on the road: everyone is asking for it to slide.
