Carmakers Rebel at the EU's 'Stick and Stick' Approach on EV Mandates

“The EU is in a crisis caused by low consumer demand for EVs and unfair competition from third country EV manufacturers, meaning that the EU industry will not be able to meet these reduction targets. EU industry will have little choice but to significantly cut production, which threatens millions of jobs in the EU, harms consumers, and adversely impacts the EU’s competitiveness and economic security.”

The quote above is an excerpt from a draft European Automobile Manufacturer’s Association (EAMA) document made public this week in a story by Bloomberg. The report was prepared by EAMA in preparation for formally requesting a 2-year delay in EU emissions goals set to take effect in 2025. EU EV makers say they will not be able to meet the idiotic mandate set by the EU’s authoritarian central planners, citing low consumer desire to buy the damn things and “unfair” competition from China.

It’s a reality that should come as no real surprise to anyone, especially since critics of the EU’s central planning literally predicted this very outcome a thousand times.

The mandate is so utterly unattainable that EAMA makes this projection as part of its application for a delay:

EU rules targeting a CO2 fleet emission of about 95 grams of CO2 per kilometer per vehicle would require automakers to either halt production of about 2 million cars or be exposed to fines that could reach €13 billion ($14.3 billion) for passenger cars, according to estimates by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association contained in the draft and seen by Bloomberg.

Van manufacturers could also face paying an additional €3 billion for falling short of targets, said the group that’s currently headed by Renault SA Chief Executive Officer Luca de Meo.

“The EU is in a crisis caused by low consumer demand for EVs and unfair competition from third country EV manufacturers, meaning that the EU industry will not be able to meet these reduction targets,” the informal document said.

[End]

This strategy of piling massive fines atop unreasonable mandates by the EU brutes is what is known as the “stick and stick” approach to persuasion, the carrot be damned.

My favorite passage from this story comes in this paragraph:

“The EU automotive industry has invested billions in electrification to put vehicles on the market, but the other necessary ingredients for this transition are not in place and the competitiveness of the EU is eroding,” ACEA said in a statement on its website on Sept. 12.” [Emphasis added]

[End]

That made me laugh out loud when I first read it.

So, what are those “other necessary ingredients” referred to by ACEA?

• Seems like the first one is consumers who can afford to buy the damn things;

• The second one is consumers who actually want to buy the damn things;

• The third “necessary ingredient” is almost assuredly the eternal complaint from the rent-seeking companies feeding at the subsidy trough in this forced transition, i.e., MORE SUBSIDIES!!!!!

For the EV piece of this idiotic global project, it is a vicious cycle that will never end because the technology simply is neither practical nor scalable nor sufficiently desirable to a critical mass of consumers.

Yet, the EU’s central planners, being true believers in the Global Church of Climate Alarm™, appear intent on bankrupting entire national economies if that’s what it takes. Thus, the “stick and stick” approach is likely to be doubled-down upon until the people of that continent rise up in full rebellion to make the evil people stop.

God help us.

That is all.