Many times Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis Groupexpressed reservations about the transition to fully electric vehicles. This despite the fact that his company has announced a major investment and development plan which will see it have 4 different all-electric platforms for building a wide range of cars.
In a joint interview with the newspapers Les Echos, Handelsblatt, Corriere della Sera and El Mundo, Tavares underlined his opinion that the transition to electric vehicles is above all a political choice and that the exit from the stage of heat engines has consequences related to the environment and social management related to work.
According to Tavares, the auto industry, called upon to reduce car emissions for a more sustainable future, it would not have the only means of electric cars available but could take advantage of other technologies such as hybrids already in use. Tavares calculates that in Europe, with the current mix of energy production between the different accessible sources, an electric vehicle must travel at least 70,000 km before it can offset the CO2 emissions generated by the production of batteries installed, so as to balance the bill with a mild hybrid type vehicle. Added to this is the cost, which can even be half that of a corresponding all-electric car.
To this type of consideration, it is objected that if the count of 70,000 km is correct, but that we have no data to affirm or refute it, even a light hybrid type car has an impact in terms of CO2 of its production, which is added to that generated during travel on the roads.
Said this, a distance of 70,000 km especially for a fully electric vehicle is extremely limited considering the average life of a car of this type, as well as the average mileage driven by the owner of a vehicle before it was sold or scrapped. Even if it took 70,000 km to reach a break-even point in terms of emissions, once this threshold was exceeded, an electric car would still not emit emissions, whereas for thermal vehicles, even if they were hybrids, the impact would still be gift.
The opinion expressed by Tavares, moreover, reproduces what he expressed in previous public interventions: at the end of 2021, he declared that the transition to electric vehicles had been imposed on manufacturers from above, with the consequence that it will lead to the bankruptcy of some of the market players. Tavares last spring expressed his skepticism about the environmental impact of electric vehicles as well as a problem related to the cost of purchasing this type of vehicle.
Regardless of your CEO’s opinion, Stellantis is enthusiastically looking into the electrification of its cars. While the range on the market is already gradually expanding with 100% electric cars, in a few years the availability of new 100% EV platforms will further extend the presence of the various brands of the Stellantis group in the world of zero-emission cars.