Stellantis Group CEO Carlos Tavares remains a critic of the proliferation of electric cars. He appreciates rather hybrids.
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The Stellantis Group is celebrating one year, just now a year ago, a new car group was formed, a merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and the PSA Group. Carlos Tavares, the current head of the French group, who remains a critic of electric cars, took the lead in the role of CEO. This is despite the fact that Stellantis has no choice but to plan a massive expansion of the electric car range in the future.
“Electrification is a technique chosen by politicians, not industry. There have been cheaper and faster ways to reduce emissions,” Carlos Tavares told the world media as part of the first jubilee of the Stellantis Group.
Origin A Portuguese manager who has also held senior positions in Renault in the past, he has long been a critic of electromobility. For in 2018, he considered the related problems of the boom in electric cars, which in his opinion were not addressed – taxation, charging station infrastructure or complex production related to the need for precious metals.
“It should not be forgotten that this will have social consequences and that we risk losing the middle class, which will no longer be able to buy cars,” Tavares warns. This draws attention to the fact that battery electric cars continue to be significantly more expensive than cars with a conventional internal combustion engine.
That’s why Tavares says, “We’ll see which manufacturers survive in a few years.” They are afraid of the struggle to reduce production costs or increase productivity, which electric cars demand in order to reduce their price.
Moreover, according to the head of Stellantis, it is not easy even with the ecology of this type of drive. “In 10 or 15 years, we will know the real impact of electromobility in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” says Tavares, adding that it is too simplistic not to look at the entire life cycle of a car. It draws attention to the environmentally demanding production of batteries for electric vehicles.
According to Tavares, due to the European energy mix, the electric car has to travel 70,000 km to compensate for the carbon dioxide emissions that arose during the production of its battery. Only then, according to him, will the gap between the electric car and the hybrid begin to narrow.
“We also know that hybrids cost half as much as electric cars. In the end, it’s not better to adopt high-performance hybrid cars to stay affordable and provide immediate CO 2 benefits.2to have 100% electric vehicles that people cannot afford, while asking governments to continue to increase their budget deficits to provide incentives? ”Tavares asks.
He speaks like Toyota President Akio Toyoda, who also emphasizes that full-hybrids are much more environmentally friendly than battery electric cars. In addition, according to Tavares, subsidies for electric cars are unbearable in the long run, because with the growing volume of sales of such cars, governments will no longer be able to afford their financing.
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