Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis, has been very accurate when it comes to analyzing the political imposition of electric cars and how much Spain can lose if it does not start betting strongly on the automotive industry.
It can be said in many ways, but few will be clearer than the one you have chosen. Charles Tavares, CEO of Stellantis, to describe the current situation in Spain in a transition to the electric car that, moreover, considers that it has been nothing more than a political maneuver.
And it is that, as Tavares himself points out, «In recent decades, Spain has sought and achieved strong industrial development, becoming the second largest automotive producer in Europe, behind Germany, but ahead of Italy and France. The State, the companies and the unions have managed to work together.”
«Electrification is the technology chosen by politicians, not by industry»
However, the transition to electric cars has forced the industry, manufacturers and administrations to reinvent themselves and adapt, a process in which the Spanish government is lagging behind, says Tavares.
“The question that Spain faces is: does it want to lose what it has achieved in the last 20 or 30 years? Or do you want it to be fruitful? This obviously depends a lot on the speed and dynamics that the Spanish government wants to stimulate. If you don’t move fast, that work runs the risk of being lost because things are going very, very, very fast”, warns the leader of the business network resulting from the merger between FCA and PSA.
the battery factory
One of the key issues each government must address is ensuring that it receives a piece of the pie from conversion.
This translates into the preservation and addition of jobs through investments aimed at adapting existing factories to electric cars, or the construction of new centers such as those that must manufacture batteries for this type of mobility.
Fran Valle has tested one of the most anticipated electric cars: the Hyundai Ioniq 5.
But Spain -says Tavares- is not doing its homework and runs the risk of not taking over the Stellantis battery factory, among others. «Spain is not one of the European states that have moved fast. We also see that in Spain the proportion of sales of electric vehicles is lower than in other places. There may be more public apprehension. The European recovery plan is helping Spain and Stellantis is quite open to discussing it with the Spanish government. But for the moment, we have not been requested by the government,” he reveals.
Currently, Stellantis has confirmed battery factories in Douvrin (France), Kaiserslautern (Germany) and thermoli (Italy). In addition, the consortium will also have two gigafactories in North America, one that will go hand in hand with LG Energy Solutions and another that will be developed together with Samsung SDI.
But Tavares has not limited himself to analyzing the situation of Spain in the current scenario, but has pointed to politicians as the main cause of a forced transition for purposes unrelated to the needs of the industry.
“Electrification is the technology of choice for politicians, not industry. There were cheaper and faster methods to reduce emissions than this. The chosen method does not allow automakers to be creative in coming up with different electrification ideas. But it is a political choice,” he reiterates.
A decision that not only causes imbalances in the industry, but also threatens to impact society as a result of the increase in costs derived from the electric car.
“There is a risk that the middle class will be excluded if we do not reduce our costs. But it is also the new technologies that are driving up prices, especially electrical technologies, which are 50% more expensive than thermal technologies”, explains Tavares.
“It is clear that if we prohibit, as has been decided, the sale of thermal vehicles from 2035 in Europe, we will have to start transforming all the factories very quickly. The brutality of change is what creates social risk», he concludes.