On paper, the trajectory of electric cars was going to be an upward curve. It is true that its growth has been slower than initial at the beginning, but it was expected that, although at a slower speed than optimal, it would always be upwards. However, reality is not like that and from time to time some setback arises that makes them retreat.
It is something that can be seen in the market in general, but is exemplified in the case of these four brands that pull the handbrake in their commitment to the electric car.
To put ourselves in a situation, once Europe approved the ban on selling any type of car that was not 100% electric once 2035 arrives, all manufacturers rushed to establish a roadmap that would meet that deadline, many of them even announcing that they would only have zero-emission models even sooner.
However, it is one thing to govern and establish laws that must be followed, and another thing is reality, which is usually stubborn and difficult to force and oblige to do anything.
Thus, the situation of the electric car is far from what was expected when the regulations were established and several car brands have already decided to relax their position in this regard and control their investments in the sector.
Among the most striking cases we can find those of Volkswagen, Volvo, Renault and Ford; each one with its own particularities, but all of them within a general panorama that is structured into three main problems.
The first is the economic situation regarding high interest rates, something that is causing many companies (also technology companies related to the industry) to reduce their investments in this field.
The second is the increase in production costs, which makes the difference compared to traditional thermal models, without an electrical system and with “less technology” even greater.
The third, last and most important, is the fact that demand is simply insufficient. Except in some specific markets (such as Nordic Europe) and despite the success of the Tesla Model Y as the best-selling car in the world in 2023, buyers still do not want zero-emission models.
Sales are not keeping up (in Spain they were only 5% of the cars registered last year) and that makes it even more difficult to justify the investment in its development and production.
Now, how are the different manufacturers reacting to this situation?
Volkswagen
Volkswagen announced in 2023 that over the next five years it was going to make an investment of no less than 180,000 million euros to boost its electrification process. This, however, was with the 2022 results in hand, which showed significant growth in the company’s electric vehicles.
A year later, however, the electric vehicle market has stopped growing, is stagnating in many countries (if not declining in others) and we have to be more cautious.
Thus, it has decided to limit its movements in this field, one of the most obvious being the fact of having paralyzed the IPO of PowerCo, its battery division. Apparently, the reason is that the electric car market is not growing enough to consider the opportune moment to list it.
Volvo
The Swedish brand is one of those that has marked its conversion to an exclusive electric car manufacturer on the calendar. Although that route time is not going to change, along the way it has announced that it is going to stop financing Polestar, its luxury electric brand, transferring responsibility for it to Geely, Volvo’s main shareholder.
The move, far from harming it, has proven to be a success, since after the announcement the value of its shares rose by 30%.
Renault
In the case of Renault, as part of its ambitious Renaulution plan, the French company announced the creation of Ampere, a division specialized in electric cars.
His idea was to take it public, a move aimed at obtaining liquidity to enhance the electrification of the group, but due to the poor conditions of the stock market, he has finally decided to back down and change plans. Of course, the entity affirms that despite this it has sufficient liquidity to do it on its own.
Ford
The American brand already announced last year, specifically in October, that based on the economic results, it was going to cut its investment in electric vehicles.
And, although during the third quarter of last year its global sales of zero-emission models increased by 44%, it obtained a negative operating result of 1.3 billion dollars (1.2 billion euros) which, of course, did not was due exclusively to the performance of its battery vehicles.
The “cherry” to all this is provided by Tesla, one of the largest exponents of electric cars in the world: since its last presentation of results, its shares have fallen 10% and its stock market valuation has been lowered by $65.1 billion. , that is, 59.9 billion euros.
Fuente: Business Insider