Production of EVs in EU declining due to falling demand
European automakers are reducing the production of electric vehicles (EVs) due to falling demand, which may create great difficulties in implementing the EU’s plans to abandon internal combustion engines by 2035, according to the Financial Times newspaper with reference to the European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton, TASS reports
According to him, fewer electric cars will be produced at the EU’s factories in 2024 than in 2023, when 1.8 million were manufactured. Last week, the German carmaker Volkswagen announced the possible closure of the Audi high-end electric vehicle production plant in Brussels, and also for the first time in its history does not exclude the closure of one of the enterprises in Germany.
European manufacturers are striving to produce cheaper models, partially transferring production to China, where models costing less than €20,000 are coming off the assembly lines. The decline in the pace of automotive production in the EU is also due to the emergence of a large number of more affordable Chinese electric cars on the European market.
According to EU officials, the deficit in EV trade with China has reached €8.8bn. Many of the 13 million jobs that depend on the industry and its supply chain are at risk.
Earlier, the European Commission and the European Parliament banned the use of internal combustion engines for passenger cars in the EU from 2035. Thus, the EU institutions are trying to force the European automotive industry to switch to the production of EVs at an urgent pace and try to become the leading manufacturer in the world. However, these plans have been hit by a sharp increase in imports of Chinese EVs since early 2023, which are gaining in price compared to their European counterparts.
Plans to expand the network of charging stations for EVs are being implemented more slowly than expected in the EU. In a decade, the share of electric vehicle electricity consumption could reach 13.5 percent of total demand, which would require up to €800bn in investments in transmission networks alone.
