The Future of Cars and the Challenges Facing the Car Industry in the European Union

“Three blocs are the biggest problem for the car industry,” said Petr Knap, EY’s expert on the car sector, at the conference on the competitiveness of the European Union and the future of cars, which took place under the banner of the ČTK Connect.

“First, energy, both price and availability, is the foundation of civilization. The second is resources, many basic materials and inputs are required, and refinement in the initial stages is required. The third theme is people, from an educational perspective, job opportunity and flexibility. The job market is not working for us and we don’t even have a well thought out point system,” Knap explained the challenges.

The fact that almost 1.4 million passenger cars were produced in the country last year also proves the importance of this topic for selected EU countries – including the Czech Republic. And most of these were cars with internal combustion engines.

“The Czech car industry is growing, at home by 13%, in the European Union by 12%.” I hope that the recession is behind us and things will get better,” said Eduard Muřický, director general of industry and construction at the Ministry of Industry and Trade, describing the increase one year on year in passenger car production.

However, there is uncertainty about the long-term prospects for European car manufacturers. Although the European Union postponed the final approval of the proposal according to which it would not be possible to register cars with internal combustion engines after 2035, but similar proposals have been presented and discussed in the past by, for example, Great Britain, some US states or some areas in China.

“Škoda cars powered by modern and very economical internal combustion engines will play a leading role even when the car company switches to electromobility. Škoda Auto uses their knowledge to optimize these engines and improve their economy,” said Škoda in a press release, for example.

In the Czech Republic, petrol currently leads the way in terms of fuel with 68.58%, the share of diesel in newly registered passenger cars is 24.13%, said the Association of Consumers -car trade in press release. Across the EU, battery electric cars accounted for 10.9% of the market in January (up from 9.5% in January 2023), while hybrids had a share of almost 30%, cementing their position as second a favorite choice of customers. The combined market share of traditional petrol and diesel cars was close to 50% in January 2024, down from 54% year-on-year, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) said in a press release.

The four guests on the first panel of the conference (in addition to Knap, Robert Kiml, Vice President for Production, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Czech Republic, Petr Michnik, Head of Administrative Subdivision, Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Czech, Pavel Juříček, owner and CEO of Brano) the need to reduce expectations Green Deal and focus on the conditions for local business to be able to fight the competition.

“Some things like ESG (level of sustainability and social responsibility of the company, note ed.)to cancel, it would have to be reviewed,” said Pavel Juříček, who called the green deal a “Black Deal”.