a few months from the deadline, we are far from the mark

Electric car sales suffered another setback in November in Europe, mainly due to poor performance in France and Germany, the two main markets. At the dawn of 2025, the “EV” is far from the mark.

November in Europe was no surprise for electric vehicles, which fell. After noting the poor results of Germany (-21.8%) and France (-24.4%), which are the two leading markets in this area on the Old Continent, we inevitably expected a gloomy November on a European scale. This was not lacking, since with 130,757 vehicles registered last month across the continent, electric vehicles saw their market share fall to 15%, compared to 16.3% in November 2023. Of the first 11 month of the year, the market share of electric vehicles reaches 13.4%, or 5.4% less than over the same period in 2023. The alert is therefore red for manufacturers, who are preparing for a complicated year 2025.

The CO2 target missed?

Voices have been raised in recent months at ACEA (European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association), which defends the interests of automobile manufacturers in Europe: the long-planned tightening for 2025 and which concerns the limit of CO2 emissions could cause serious damage to some. But other analysts believe that the registrations observed in 2024 should allow most major manufacturers to escape any fine.

So who holds the good cards? The first half of 2025 will be very instructive. “The gap to overcome to achieve the 2025 objectives is absolutely considerable”already comments the general director of the Automobile Platform (PFA), Marc Mortureux. And for good reason: according to ACEA calculations, at least 20% of electric registrations are needed in Europe for the CO2 objectives to be respected. A gap of almost seven points to fill in just a few months, it actually seems like a miracle, and everything cannot be based on the rare, fairly popular models like the Renault 4 and 5 or the Citroën ë-C3. This probably won’t be enough. But before leaving his seat, Carlos Tavares did not ask for a postponement of the tightening planned for 2025, believing that Stellantis was already ready to respect the values ​​attributed to it.

The recipe for success

To avoid the painful next year, manufacturers will therefore have two solutions: the first is already known and adopted by almost everyone: it is the famous “pooling”. Automotive groups which join together and share their CO2 credits when they have them, for a fee, to allow others to escape fines. The second is more vicious and we have already mentioned it: significantly increase the price of new petrol, diesel or micro-hybrid cars, to attract customers away from thermal vehicles. Even if it means selling the motorist an electric car that may be too expensive for a cash purchase, but which will be better leased under apparently attractive rents… if we omit a first rent which is often expensive, and which will no longer benefit from the 7,000 € bonus to bring it to zero.