A group of experts proposes to eliminate rates for Chinese cars to encourage European production | Economy
An insufficient car load network; an industry accommodating with great profit margins; A scarcely performed environmental policy and a small innovative sector. These and other reasons are behind the small enthusiasm of European consumers for electric cars Made in EuropeAccording to the document prepared by European Political Economy Opinion Group, Directed by the former Economic Consultant of Catalonia Antoni Castells.
The report explains that the ambitious commitment of the community for the decarbonisation of road transport was taken in a context in which the starting conditions of the producers of the continent were not very favorable because they were lacking in sufficient technology. But the lined industrial policy From then on, to correct this deficit, it does not succeed in some of its essential objectives, such as “supporting the innovation of the technologies necessary for the production of batteries and vehicles”.
In 2023, The production of batteries in Europe He contributed with 100 gigawatt of the 225 defendants, “without even reaching half of the cause”, the document abounds. In the field of innovation, the results offered by the European automotive industry They are even less satisfactory. “The comparison with China, who started with enormous ambition the development of its electric vehicle industry slightly before the European dates, around 2012, is devastating according to the Draghi report,” recalls the authors.
European companies have deficiencies in software And in the connection of devices outside the vehicle and although the sales and the production of electric have grown at high rates, it did not do as quickly as expected. In addition, in 2024 he showed symptoms of slowdown. It is not strange that consumers are more prone Buy hybrids or plug -in hybrids Those electric cars as well which, together with the growing competition of Chinese cars, are retreating The production of European brands.
The document, signed by professors Rafael Myro, of the Complutse University of Madrid and Vicente Salas, of the University of Zaragoza, Attract attention to another problem. The European brands, which pay better wages and have higher battery costs for their lower technological domain, have been oriented towards vehicles of greater value, aimed at a population whose demand is less elastic at the price, “trying to obtain economies of economies learn doing (Learn march) With those who later face the construction of an economic vehicle, directed to the average citizen. Of mentality since the subsidies, believe, are justified by themselves due “to the abundant externalities they have and for the uncertainty that surrounds the potential results of an important part of the expenses that must be hypothesized”.
Labyrinth tariff
The authors face the policies of the rates imposed by the EU To imports of Chinese cars According to them, according to them, justifiable measures are temporarily, although with side effects, because among other things they damage the same European companies that produce in China. In the longest period, in the face of this tariff climb, Europeg proposes the negotiations: “It seems clear that it is preferable to ignore the rates and reach the pacts with China that allow the establishment of companies in this country in the territory of the community and the transfer of technology to its European competitors, as well as stable access to minerals and strategic materials”. These agreements should guarantee that Asian companies grow more and more factories on European soil and are not simple cars assemblies, “which is what they are announcing currently”.
The authors, however, warn that the implementation of Chinese societies in European territory should be part of “a more vigorous industrial policy than that developed so far”. The movement would imply, admit, risks: “It should not be excluded that Chinese companies with branches in Europe end up taking the sector in more than a decade, given their technological superiority, which does not decrease, but continuously increases”.
And since the environmental requests for industry and its – often – difficult conjugation with greater competitiveness of the companies, the authors ask for “a little mint the objectives of the decarbonisation”, it would be a matter of trampling on the brake in the environmental needs for the sector “to agree on the times with companies and the design of realistic scenarios” and would make a bet on innovation, “with strength and strength”. Any other alternative, they believe, is excluded, “not only because safety must be evaluated in an increasingly insecure world, but also because an industry that remains in technological and productive life must be preserved”.
