The CEO of Stellantis, the car group behind Opel, Peugeot and Fiat, is afraid that Europeans will buy Chinese cars en masse in the future.
At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, he called on the European Union to better protect the European car industry against emerging competition from China.
“The price difference between European and Chinese cars is significant. Suppose nothing is done to change the current situation. In that case, European middle-class consumers will increasingly turn to Chinese models,” Carlos Tavares told German magazine Automobilwoche on the sidelines of the major tech fair. Without EU intervention, European automakers face a scenario similar to that of the solar panel industry, he warned.
According to Tavares, current EU regulations mean that the costs for electric cars in Europe are about 40 percent higher than when those cars are made elsewhere. “If you keep the European market open, we have no choice. Then we have to compete directly with the Chinese.” In that case, companies such as Stellantis, which has its headquarters in Hoofddorp, would probably be forced to move their production abroad.
Tavares, therefore, argues for extra protection for its own European industry. In his view, this should lead to a kind of reindustrialisation of Europe, in which all kinds of activities that have long ceased to be done in this part of the world could return.
However, Tavares indicated that he was aware that this would require a major change in current EU policy. And the sizeable German industry would not like that change. Indeed, German manufacturers have much closer business ties with China than Stellantis, which is struggling with sales problems and recently closed a Jeep factory in China.
