“Stop being naïve and dogmatic.” That’s some statement to Europe’s political leaders from Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares on legislation in favour of EVs, but then he’s never a man to pull his punches.
Tavares’s ire isn’t only at the decision itself, which he believes is pricing the middle classes out of new cars, but also at the perhaps even greater consequence of it that was allowing Chinese companies to come in and undercut the electric cars of native European companies while we’re in this transitional phase.
And given that, as Tavares believes, the Chinese have a 10-year head start on we Europeans in making electric cars, plus their control of the supply chain and raw materials, this makes the issue an existential one for car makers here in face of the sometimes state-backed opposition.
The solution, according to Tavares, is to either impose tariffs on Chinese cars or to offer favourable subsidies on European ones.
