“The survival of the sector is at stake” (Luc Chatel, president of the automotive platform)

LA TRIBUNE SUNDAY – The Paris Motor Show opens its doors this Monday in a context of crisis. Does this concern you?

LUC CHATEL – While the context is extremely difficult for the sector, we are going, for a week, to re-enchant the automobile and make the Paris show a celebration. The French love cars and say so. Before being a commodity, the car retains a strong emotional dimension. This 90th edition will be the meeting between innovation and passion, between past and future. For example, you will have the exhibition of around twenty vehicles emblematic of the innovations which marked the show. Opposite, “The Electric Factory”, an immersive experience at the heart of the technological challenges of the future.

Transition to electric cars: 40,000 jobs threatened in France

The problem remains that the French buy far fewer cars…

Since 2019, we have lost the equivalent of a year of automobile sales in France. And registrations continue to show a decline of around 23% compared to their level before the Covid crisis. The month of September is the worst in twenty years. Economic uncertainties weigh heavily on the market, which we cannot imagine will be able to take off again by the end of 2024. And consumers are lost in the meanderings of aid for the purchase of electric vehicles, which change in permanence. For three months, electric sales have been declining; it’s an alert.

Highly anticipated at the Mondial, will the new electric city cars help revive the electric market?

The show will indeed give pride of place to local electric mobility, with small city cars incorporating major innovations. The new Renault 5 will be present, for example, or even the Citroën ë-C3. Here are two vehicles from the French ranges whose prices are starting to be more affordable and which will be the blockbusters of the coming months in terms of switching to electric.

What can the industry do to further lower prices, which remain the main obstacle to electricity?

I’m already looking at how far I’ve come. In five years, we have increased the market share of electric vehicles tenfold. It is 17% in France, when the European average is 12%. But let’s be clear: we cannot transform a market in this way without a sustained level of purchasing aid. Remove aid, the market collapses. In France, the bonus, the amount of which has already been reduced, has changed five times in five years, even though we have never needed stability so much.

What do you anticipate about the bonus-malus?

We are told of a budget envelope for purchasing aid which would be reduced by at least a third. And at the same time, it is announced that the penalty will be increased like never before in 2025. For the automobile industry, it is a double penalty. And, for the consumer, a disguised tax. More than one in two vehicles sold will be taxed, including the entire range of Clios and 208s. If we wanted to accelerate the brakes on the market, we would not do it any other way.

Was Europe right to recently approve a surcharge on Chinese electric cars, in your opinion?

We like competition in automobiles, but on condition that it is fair. Europe judges that Chinese manufacturers were able to benefit from massive state aid, contrary to competition rules. It makes sense that she would defend her interests. But the urgency is also to finally initiate a real industrial strategy in Europe.

Mondial de l’automobile: the eternal return to the future

Between Volkswagen which could close factories and numerous warnings on results from manufacturers, is the industry at stake for its survival?

Yes, the survival of the sector is at stake. Europe has already lost major industries… Even the giants can die. Right-thinking minds in Brussels imagined that we were going to transform a century-old industry overnight with regulations. They have forgotten that at the end there is the customer. The worst thing would be that in the end, despite the unprecedented investments made by the sector in electric vehicles, the cars do not sell. It is time for Brussels to put an end to the all-regulatory logic in Europe and demonstrate its ability to adopt a real strategic vision for its industry. We call for a European industrial pact for the automobile.

Do you share the wish of many manufacturers to revise the intermediate objective for 2025 of the European regulations on CO 2 emissions?

The only way to come out on top is to urge Brussels and the various States to take immediate measures to stimulate demand for electric vehicles. Regulations [dont l’objectif est d’en finir avec les ventes de voitures thermiques en 2035] also provides for a review clause in 2026. Let’s open discussions today and create the conditions for success in the face of this historic challenge.