Yahoo Autos Stellantis CEO: EV Costs Threaten Automakers
⚡️ Read the full article on Motorious
He blames “external pressure” for the march into oblivion, and he’s not wrong…
Most people these days are shocked at how much new and even used cars cost. Price inflation has become a fact of life when shopping for a vehicle, but Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares is sounding the alarm that things could get much, much worse thanks to the push for electrification. Depending on your view, you might be thinking this is shocking, old news, or absolutely enraging considering what Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis has been telling the media lately.
Check out Toyota’s warning about rushing into electrification here.
According to Tavares, electric cars could come with “50% additional costs against a conventional vehicle.” He astutely observed that increasing the retail price of vehicles by 50% would mean most of the middle class wouldn’t be able to shoulder the cost. This might be an astounding revelation for those who have believed the line that EVs will be cheaper than traditional cars. Others are sitting there nodding, asking if increased costs aren’t the whole point of electrification. After all, those really pushing for “progress” seem to have utter disdain for the middle class.
He then went on to comment on how automakers would be forced to either charge those significantly higher prices for EVs and in turn sell fewer cars to more affluent customers or alternatively sell cars with narrower profit margins, eating part of the costs. Both sound like a bad deal for consumers, particularly for those who are in the middle class. Funny how many of these “green” initiatives do that.
Tavares also mentioned that governments and investors pushing automakers to jump fully into electrification is leading to costs “beyond the limits” of what automakers can endure. Those of us who have been pointing this fact out for years have endured being called technophobes, anti-progress, anti-science, and whatever other insults could be conjured up.
