Brussels – The big question, and more importantly, the big challenge, for the European Union is how it will turn out: Europe, so far, is losing the electric car bet, and the transformation of mobility is up to China. These are the effects of the Green Deal, which, in mobility, has boosted the car sector of the People’s Republic of China. A European Parliament working paper devoted to the topic clearly sums up the data and trends: Europe’s on-road sustainability is ‘Made in China’:
The EU, with its sustainability agenda, has helped stimulate a market in which it is failing to lead, triggering a competition that it currently suffers and looks set to suffer more for at least the next few years.
Globally, the sale of electric vehicles “is booming.” In 2022 alone, 10 million electric vehicles were sold worldwide, “100 times more than in 2012.” Also, in 2022, the share of electric cars increased from 9 percent of total car sales in 2021 to 14 percent. The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects this share to reach 18 percent in 2023. In the EU, the market share has increased sixfold since 2019 (when the current Commission, which launched the Green Deal, took office), reaching 12.1 percent in 2022.
In this trend of increasing focus by the auto industry on electric vehicles, ‘Made in EU’ output remains a problem due to costs. “The dominant European companies have difficulty making profitable electric vehicles, mainly because of the high cost of batteries,” which accounts for “30 percent to 50 percent of the cost of an electric vehicle.” A competitive disadvantage that others have taken advantage of. “Competitors, such as China, have thrived in this context, betting on electric cars,” proving how the electric car game is increasingly shaping up as a resounding own-goal for the European Union. “Analysts warned that Chinese car companies could become the force shaping the global auto industry in the coming years.” The EU basically dictates the line, China runs industrial processes and assembly lines: it confirms, once again, the political debate that has characterized the current now-ending legislature: Europe’s green transition goes through Beijing, which gains from Europeans’ choices. Inevitable, considering that the Asian country produces about 65 percent of battery cells and nearly 80 percent of cathodes.
The result of European choices is that in 2022, 35 percent of all electric cars exported globally came from China, 10 percentage points more than the previous year. Pending consolidated data, there is a serious possibility that by 2023 China “will become the world’s leading exporter of electric cars, especially to Europe and Asia.” The EU, therefore, has ended up entrusting its green transition in mobility to the Chinese. It will take more spending on research and development to turn the tide. While it is true that the Union has a problem with raw materials for alternative-fueled cars to gasoline and diesel, it is also true that where Europe could be doing more is not being done. “Most European companies are still lagging in electric vehicle innovation,” which translates into “no European company being a leading innovator in software architecture, connectivity or autonomous driving,” another factor that plays in Beijing’s favor.
An industrial effort has to be accompanied by a political effort. To thrive and especially to escape the brunt of Chinese competition, the European electric car industry “must have secure access to affordable batteries and semiconductors, improve its innovation capabilities in new technologies, reduce costs, and adopt a more circular approach, particularly to recover critical raw materials.” The European Parliament working paper identifies what the EU has gotten itself into, not a simple attempt at economic transformation that has become even more complicated.
