Carlos Tavares (66) is known for his clear edge. As some colleagues have recently felt, especially Renault-Boss Luca de Meo (57) started to rail against stricter CO₂ regulations for car manufacturers in the EU from 2025, he said Stellantis-Boss against it. “It would be surreal to change the rules now,” Tavares told the AFP news agency in mid-September. It was long enough to prepare for the tightening of the rules; the tightening for 2025 was already decided in 2019. “Now it’s time to start the race,” said Tavares.
His own dealers have now started running, with one open letter
to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (65). Unlike Tavares, the four heads of European Stellantis dealer associations, André Figueiredo, Cesare De Lorenzi, Piero Carlomagno and Andreas Barchetti, believe the emissions targets are unattainable. “On behalf of the European dealer networks of Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Citroën, DS, Fiat, Lancia, Jeep, Opel and Peugeot” they now turned directly to von der Leyen.
“We are firmly convinced that the CO₂ reduction targets for 2025 are not feasible under the current market conditions,” the letter says. For many brands, this could only be achieved if they sold significantly more electric cars than before. But the models on offer are too expensive, the infrastructure is too poorly developed, and customers’ reservations are too great, criticize the Stellantis dealers.
In September, sales of new electric cars in Europe “collapsed” with a decline of 43.9 percent, whereas sales of cars with combustion engines remained stable. “As a daily contact point for customers, we are noticing an increasing reluctance among car buyers towards electric cars,” and in particular there are concerns about “prices, range and availability.”
The dealers are aware that with the letter they are positioning themselves “contrary to the manufacturer we represent”. “But from our point of view, it is completely clear that the industry is not yet prepared to sell the necessary number of electric cars.” The “increasing divergence between the goals of the regulatory authorities, the market readiness and the expectations of the manufacturers” is a reason for this Worries. In a response, Stellantis said it was working with dealers to “define the perfect sales mix within the framework of CO2 compliance.” Among other things, the manufacturer wants to bring six additional electric models onto the market in the coming years.
However, the public appeal is another chapter in the difficult relationship between Stellantis and its dealers. Numerous partners repeatedly rage because of the brutal methods
, with whom Tavares runs the group. For a long time the Portuguese was able to shine with exceptionally high returns, but now Stellantis has also started to falter. The group had just set its goals for the current year have to correct massively downwards.
Things are likely to become even more difficult for the auto industry in 2025. In the EU, car manufacturers will have to significantly reduce their average fleet emissions next year if they want to avoid fines. So far, an average of 116 grams of CO₂ emissions per kilometer has been permitted; from 2025 the maximum will be 93.6 grams.
Significantly more electric cars are needed
According to calculations by the data service provider Dataforce, Stellantis would have to double its electronic share in the coming year in order to meet the new requirements. In the first half of 2024, 9 percent of all new cars sold by the group were electric cars; in 2025, according to Dataforce calculations, it should be 18 percent. Sales of plug-in hybrids would also have to double, from 4 percent to 8 percent.
Also other manufacturers like Volkswagen, ford or Renault is threatened with trouble if they cannot increase their e-sales enormously. Renault boss de Meo, who also has a part-time job as president of the European automobile manufacturers association ACEA, sounded the alarm at the beginning of September: “If electric vehicles remain at the current level, according to our calculations, the European industry may have to pay 15 billion euros in fines or else it must stop producing more than 2.5 million vehicles,” he told France Inter radio station in early September.
More on the topic
The Stellantis dealers now argue similarly in their letter to von der Leyen. If the targets were not adjusted, manufacturers would face massive financial problems, which would lead to significantly lower car production in Europe. “This scenario would result in an unstable economic situation for the entire sector,” believe the traders.
The four association heads therefore “strongly” want Ursula von der Leyen and the EU Commission to make legal adjustments that would make the transition to the 2035 goals less abrupt. Then only cars that have no local CO₂ emissions will be allowed to be sold in the EU. However, the traders’ chances of success seem slim: a spokesman for the EU Commission had already brushed off de Meo’s initiative in mid-September – and sounded very similar to Carlos Tavares: “The industry had enough time to prepare for the next phase of the transition.”