When Akio Toyoda, until last month Toyota’s chief executive, said that electric cars were not the only solution for clean mobility, the world fell on him. Many called him old-fashioned, chalked up his enthusiasm for fast cars for that statement and said the world’s largest automaker, whose name is based on his last name, was lagging behind in electrification because of it. Even the board of the brand believed it and they ended up convincing him to leave his position. But now that another CEO with a similar level of importance has said something similar, it may be that those who were closed to the idea that the future of cars must be electric cars, open their minds to other alternatives.
Within the framework of the Free Mobility Forum, the Portuguese Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis, declared himself somewhat disappointed at the inflexibility of many authorities, particularly European ones, to free themselves from the idea of building only electric cars from now on. According to Tavares – with whom I fully agree on this aspect – the regulations should focus on the production of non-polluting vehicles, instead of concentrating exclusively on one technology to achieve it: “It is a huge loss of scientific creativity,” he declared at the event.
It’s not that electric cars are bad. In fact, driving them is very pleasant due to the immediate torque, the absence of vibrations and noise, the low center of gravity. But there are many problems that are still not overcome. One of the main ones is the cost, which keeps electric cars a privilege of a few. Nearly 20 years ago, Carlos Ghosn, then CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, said that time and volume would cause the prices of batteries – the most expensive element of an electric car – to fall to the point of matching their price. to that of an internal combustion car. The reality is that an electric car still costs 40% more to produce than an ICE (Internal Combustion Engine). The volume has not produced a drop in price because the materials are scarce, mainly lithium.
Germany says not always
Last November, the Europeans – those who bid the most for electric cars and before bidding for diesel – reached a basic agreement to ban the sale of new vehicles with internal combustion engines. Basically, that meant that EVs would not only be the dominant technology, but the only one. Italy, with its Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, was against it. But Italy does not have enough power to stop the agreement. That power, which is measured by the population of each country, is held by Germany, which at the end of March decided to change its position and support the ICE, as long as they use synthetic fuels. Now everything returns to point zero and will need to be discussed again, but if the German position prevails -as it almost always does- electric cars will be seriously threatened.
Opponents of the German idea say that a car designed to run on liquid fuel can easily be rigged to run on fossil fuel. This is a good point, since it is estimated that by 2030, these fuels they will cost about 50% more than fossils and would be a “rich man’s toy”. Of course, as electric cars are today, we return to the beginning of this text, they have not dropped in price.
Another hard blow to the electrical ones was the cut to the subsidies that the Chinese population had to buy them. Since January, when that incentive completely disappeared, the Chinese market has fallen 20%, despite the fact that February this year was better than last year. January and February are traditionally atypical months in China, because one of them celebrates the new year, an event that almost paralyzes the country’s economy.
I don’t think Germany has passed sentence on the electric car. Neither does China. So much so that the Chinese BYD, recently arrived in Mexico and which only manufactures electric vehicles, was the best-selling brand in the world’s largest market last February, above VW, which maintains many ICE vehicles in China. What is happening is that the strength with which the electric car has grown in recent years will probably decrease, while the authorities and companies realize that it is more important not to pollute than to impose electric cars.
