The transition to electric vehicles faces numerous obstacles in Europe

He electric vehicle It is a key link in the European climate plan, but its generalization on the continent’s roads runs into significant obstacles a decade before the sale of new combustion cars is banned in 2035.

Sales of rechargeable vehicles “zero emissions” in the European Union have stagnated, or even regressed, in recent months. So far this year, electric vehicles represent a 12% or less of total sales in Europe, against a 14.6% last year.

The decline is mainly explained by data from Germany, the main European market, which ended subsidies for the purchase of these models at the end of 2023.

The general secretary of the Association of European Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA), Sigrid de Vries, cannot hide her “worry”.

Less than 30% of Europeans say they are willing to buy an electric vehicle, according to ACEA, and more than half rule out spending more than 35,000 euros ($37,600) on a car, a price range with very few electric models.

“The 2035 deadline is really tomorrow, especially if we talk about production cycles,” andDe Vries explained at a conference last week in Lillestrøm, near Oslo.

“We only have ten years to go from fifteen% (from clean vehicles) to 100%”, he warned.

At the end of 2023, a third of the 27 EU countries had still not exceeded the 5% of electric vehicles sold, a threshold from which we can speak of mass adoption, according to the economic information agency Bloomberg.

The automobile is the first method of transportation for Europeans and represents around fifteen% of the continent’s CO₂ emissions, so its decarbonization is essential to meet the bloc’s climate objectives.

Although not a member of the EU, Norway, the host country of this conference, plays a role model despite being a large producer of hydrocarbons.

Thanks to very favorable tax measures, electric vehicles, led by Tesla, represented 90% of new vehicle registrations in the first quarter. The objective is to reach 100% in 2025.

Brands such as Volkswagen and Volvo have already stopped marketing their combustion models in this Scandinavian kingdom.

”Clearly upward trend”

The transition is slower in other countries. The United Kingdom delayed by five years the ban on the sale of new combustion vehicles, now scheduled for 2035, a deadline that many do not consider realistic.

The oscillation in sales does not worry Nissan, one of the first traditional manufacturers to enter the rechargeable vehicle sector with the Leaf model.

“It goes in saw teeth and it will always be like that”its regional vice president in charge of electrification and connected services, Guillaume Pelletreau, explained to AFP.

“There was a really strong start to the wave of electrification in the last two years and now the process is beginning to normalize a little. Despite everything, we see a clearly upward trend”said.

Groups such as Volkswagen, Stellantis or Renault are planning to launch cheaper electric models in the coming months and are relying on hybrid models to boost their sales.

In France, significant state subsidies to the most modest households allowed sales to explode for a few weeks.

Charging points

One of the obstacles most mentioned by the sector is the difficulty in quickly deploying adequate infrastructure throughout the territory. In the EU, more than half of the charging points are concentrated in two countries: Germany and the Netherlands, says the ACEA.

In Spain, where consumers replace their cars every 14 years on average, a 65% of drivers park on the street, which complicates home charging, said Isabel Gorgoso, director of “new mobility” at the energy group Cepsa.

“Spain was Norway ten years ago”he claimed.

Other problems are the accumulation of regulations (up to nine per year) at the European level and the inconsistency of national policies, which can be accentuated by the rise of populist movements that are often skeptical of climate change.

ACEA’s De Vries worries about elections “high risk” to the European Parliament in June, which can reinforce populist formations suspicious of the fight against climate change. “What will happen in the coming months could determine the fate of the European automobile industry”he claimed.

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