the essential
The Paris Motor Show opened yesterday in the presence of the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron. A show which questions Europe’s capacity to count on an electric vehicle market dominated by the Chinese. However, French manufacturers are not giving up, Renault is playing the nostalgia card with the R5 and the R4.
The shock of the electric car is shaking up the European automobile market to the point that some are wondering if the European Union, by deciding to stop the marketing of new thermal cars in 2035, has not shot its flagships in the foot industrial. In fact, the European automobile industry is still struggling to negotiate the shift towards electric cars while Chinese manufacturers are ready to flood Europe with cars that are better and better finished, more and more efficient and less and less expensive.
Massively subsidized, the latter have, in fact, acquired real know-how over the past fifteen years, particularly in the field of batteries for which China has secured the supply of components. Can Europe catch up? This is one of the questions that arises as the Paris Motor Show opened yesterday.
“We went Hara-Kiri on diesel”
“Large equipment manufacturers and suppliers have already announced job cuts in our sector. 50,000 jobs lost in seven years, 37,000 since Covid. Subcontracting companies are in great danger,” warned yesterday on Franceinfo the former minister Luc Chatel, president of the PFA platform, which brings together all the players in the automotive and mobility sector, adding “We have been made Hara- Kiri on diesel since we decided to stop a technology in which we were sovereign.”
For example, on Sunday, Carlos Tavares, the boss of Stellantis, did not rule out factory closures within his group while Chinese manufacturers are increasing their announcements of opening production sites in Europe.
?➡️ “We went “Hara-Kiri” on diesel since we decided to stop a technology in which we were sovereign,” says Luc Chatel. pic.twitter.com/SlWmZh2f22
— franceinfo (@franceinfo) https://twitter.com/franceinfo/status/1845723507797189102?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
“Today we are still 23% below 2019 (at the time of the Covid crisis, editor’s note). Over five years, we have lost the equivalent of one year of automobile sales,” assures Luc Chatel, emphasizing that “the month of September was the worst in France in terms of sales for 20 years.” In Europe, in four years, sales of new cars have fallen from around 15 million to 10 million vehicles per year, which has significantly contributed to a drop from 19 to 14 million vehicles produced per year on the Old Continent… This causes real difficulties, particularly in Germany.
The increase in penalties on the most polluting gasoline and diesel cars, announced by the French government for 2025, also enrages the sector: it is “a double penalty” for manufacturers, “we are walking on our heads” , castigates the president of PFA.
DDM – Philippe Rioux
Furthermore, the too slow take-off of electric cars in France – 17% of sales of private vehicles over the first 8 months of 2024, 25% if we add plug-in hybrids – is insufficient.
The European Union, which “put the cart before the horse”, “must finally decide to launch an electric shock”, believes Luc Chatel, who therefore pleads for a “European industrial pact” in order to revive the sector. A more ambitious pact than just the customs surcharge on Chinese electric cars…
New French electrical products
At a time when the Paris Motor Show opens in Paris, French car manufacturers, in any case, are not admitting defeat in the face of this plethora of Asian competition. New Renaults and Citroëns will thus face BYD and Leapmotor, and in particular the highly anticipated Renault 4 and 5, Peugeot e-3008 and Citroën C3. With, for Renault, a bonus for nostalgia for iconic models.
Among the 48 brands present, the show sees the return of the Volkswagen groups (Audi, Skoda), BMW-Mini and Kia after a few years of absence. The American Tesla also makes an unexpected appearance to show its huge Cybertruck SUV (unveiled at VivaTech at the end of May), and Cadillac marks its return to Europe with imposing electric models.
But the show will above all unveil a myriad of Chinese electric and hybrid models: the general BYD, the luxurious Hongqi, the technophile XPeng, Maxus (utility vehicles) or Skyworth (subsidiary of an electronics group), all models which will soon be on the road on European roads.
