“The auto industry’s gamble on electric cars has turned into a catastrophe”, reports the Telegraph.
The gamble on electric cars has turned into a catastrophe and it will be many years before the industry recovers.
With less than four years remaining until the original target date for banning the sale of all new petrol and diesel cars, the giants of the industry were meant to be riding a boom in sales of battery-powered vehicles by now.
Sleek new models would be rolling off the production lines, new battery plants would be creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, while the billions poured into investment would be the catalyst for reindustrialising both Europe and the United States.
“We’re going to need 70,000 skilled people just to make batteries across this country,” announced Boris Johnson, the former prime minister, back in 2021. He promised unlimited government support for British EV production.
Over in France, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, was pouring billions into making his country a force in battery and EV production.
So we are starting to see the results of all that investment, right? Sales are booming, profits are rising and new jobs are being created? Well, not exactly.
The article goes on to mention EV-related losses and potential losses incurred by Stellantis, General Motors, Ford, Porsche and even Tesla.
Antonio Filosa, the chief executive of Stellantis, conceded that the company had overestimated “the pace of the energy transition that distanced us from many car buyers’ real-world needs, means and desires”.
It is a painful admission but one that is at least honest. One point is surely clear. We are not hearing very much about how the transition to EVs would lead to an industrial renaissance any more.
There have been two major problems. First, EVs may only be a niche product.
Drivers are worried about the range, it is far from clear they are better for the environment once the impact of all the raw materials in the manufacturing process is taken into account, the charging infrastructure is not in place and we don’t generate the electricity to power them all at a price cheap enough to make EVs cost-effective.
Next, where there is a market, the new breed of Chinese brands led by BYD is walking away with it.
But fear not, our forward-thinking and tech-savvy government is on the case. Er…
Even worse, under the direction of Ed Miliband, the fanatical Energy Secretary, Britain is pressing on blindly with the 2030 target for phasing out sales of new petrol cars even as the rest of the world recognises that it is complete madness.
In January, the government’s Gambling Commission introduced yet another set of restrictions on gambling advertisements to stop people being enticed into making wagers they cannot afford. In most cases, I’m all for people – and industries – taking responsibility for their own choices, including the choice to gamble. But given that the government’s view is that gambling promotions that are too tempting should be banned, maybe it should refer itself to its own commission. In fact, the pressure placed on auto makers to switch to electric by both this and previous governments went well beyond high-pressure advertising and into coercion.
Governments picking winners. What could possibly go wrong?
That this whole ideologically driven fantasy has hit a brick wall is a surprise only to those who don’t know their arse from a grand piano.
Funny that!