Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares has said that the growing pressures being placed on automakers to shift toward electric-vehicle production are unsustainable and run the risk of the public getting subpar products at decidedly higher price tags. While we’ve seen automotive executives lambast new energy vehicles before, it’s grown rarer as governments around the world have continued incentivizing their existence and investors have been pouring money on startups delivering literally nothing more than the mere suggestion of more electrification.
Tavares’s words come from the Reuters Next conference, running counter to the event’s prevailing narrative of encouraging technological progress and social change. Attendees tend to be political officials, heads of finance, NGO leaders, and business executives sympathetic to the cause. But the Stellantis CEO definitely went off-script when he listed some of the shortcomings of electrification, adding that he felt the costs were “beyond the limits” of what was realistically feasible. It’s his belief that pursuing electrification at the current pace doesn’t take into account the larger financial picture.
“What has been decided is to impose on the automotive industry electrification that brings 50 [percent] additional costs against a conventional vehicle,” he told Reuters in an interview. “There is no way we can transfer 50 [percent] of additional costs to the final consumer because most parts of the middle class will not be able to pay.”
From Reuters:
Automakers could charge higher prices and sell fewer cars, or accept lower profit margins, Tavares said. Those paths both lead to cutbacks. Union leaders in Europe and North America have warned tens of thousands of jobs could be lost.
Automakers need time for testing and ensuring that new technology will work, Tavares said. Pushing to speed that process up “is just going to be counter productive. It will lead to quality problems. It will lead to all sorts of problems,” he said.
Tavares said Stellantis is aiming to avoid cuts by boosting productivity at a pace far faster than industry norm.
“Over the next five years we have to digest 10 [percent] productivity a year … in an industry which is used to delivering 2 to 3 [percent] productivity” improvement, he said.
“The future will tell us who is going to be able to digest this, and who will fail,” Tavares said. “We are putting the industry on the limits.”
While we’ve absolutely seen EV prices falling over the last few years, it hasn’t been at the pace originally assumed by industry leaders and analysts. A couple of years ago, the media consensus was that electric vehicles would reach financial parity with internal combustion cars by 2025. That date now looks to be edging closer to 2030, surrounded by new promises regarding solid-state batteries and novel ways of sourcing the necessary raw materials. Modern EVs are likewise seeing improved ranges, reducing consumer anxiety, and enjoyed a meaningful jump in sales over the summer. But their popularity remains limited to urban hubs where driving distances are consistently shorter and charging stations are easier to find.
For Tavares, this would indicate a need to pump the brakes on pursuing electrification for a moment to double-check whether or not the current plan is actually sustainable. Though it must be said that his company owns Jeep, Dodge, Ram, and a slew of other brands with profit margins that are heavily dependent on larger vehicles that burn liquid fuel.
Like other legacy automakers, Stellantis (a merger between FCA and PSA Group) has spent the last hundred-plus years perfecting one type of automobile that their average customer still prefers. EV startups are the new hotness, with investors ready to bend over backward to shell out funding long before anyone has even vetted their technology. This, combined with mounting government pressure to ban internal combustion, has placed a lot of pressure on the industry. Reuters noted that the European Union and the State of California and set goals to end the sale of combustion vehicles by 2035. But other governments have placed even shorter timelines on their demise, going so far as to actively prohibit what type of powertrains are allowed into select urban environments.
This is being supported by lofty incentive programs and social pressures, with most of the developed world offering large tax rebates to EV shoppers. Meanwhile, industry players that have a vehicle lineup that doesn’t pollute at the tailpipe become eligible to profit off carbon credits while avoiding hefty regulatory fines tied to emissions testing.
Interested in nailing down some social cachet of their own — and desperate not to be left behind — the big boys are dumping billions into development programs just so they can deliver competitive electrified products. The next step is to swap to entirely electrified lineups before vehicle bans take hold or government penalties get stiffer. As a byproduct, they’ll also be able to cut back on their staffing budgets since EVs require fewer human laborers to manufacture.
Stellantis itself has committed to spending 30 billion euros ($33.9 billion USD) through 2025 to develop electric-focused vehicle architecture, establish battery production facilities, and secure the necessary raw materials that need to be mined out of the planet. It’s also streamlining operations (jobs and product) to rattle loose $5.7 billion. This week, it announced that it had invested into a solid-state battery startup in a partnership with Germany’s Daimler. It’s verifiably invested in the future of electrification, though its CEO remains skeptical that the current pathway is the correct one.
Tavares suggested that governments slow down, stop fixating on encouraging manufacturers to build EVs, and focus on making them more appetizing to the public by developing the charging infrastructure essential for their existence. He also stated that the energy sector would need some sprucing up if the shift to EVs is actually going to have a positive effect on the environment. But he maintained that it would be the financial aspects causing the most serious problems, noting that it’s ultimately the public that has to get behind the tax structures currently propping up EV sales and maintain sufficient wealth to actually continue buying them over the next several years.
It’s a sound argument, especially coming from a manufacturer viewed as slightly behind the curve in terms of EV proliferation. But we’ve even heard Tesla CEO Elon Musk discussing the need for robust power grids and sounder subsidizing. Though we’re not expecting any EV-dominant brand to outright poo-poo the global push for electrification as they have the most to gain from it.
[Image: Stellantis]
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CEO of company that makes $30k of profit a pop from 10 mpg Grand Wagoneers complains the replacement product won’t be as profitable, news at 11.
Beat me to it.
TESLA only profits from selling environmental carbon credits.
No ICE, No Profit
“No ICE, No Profit”
No longer matters for those in the big club. Printer go brrrrrrr.
This was a valid point as recently as 2019 but is no longer true. Tesla cars are solidly profitable. Per-unit battery costs dropping like a rock account for the difference.
“dropping like a rock”
Got any data on that? No snark. Would like to see that transparency.
“dropping like a rock”. Depends on the rock. Pumice floats.
Our analysis shows a 16% annual decline in the cost of battery packs between 2007 and 2020, and the industry-wide average cost of battery packs in 2020 was US $144 per kWh.Sep 13, 2021
Analysis Shows Continued Industry-Wide Decline in Electric …
https://mackinstitute.wharton.upenn.edu. I guess Wharton is a good enough school for some.
“Got any data on that? No snark. Would like to see that transparency.”
There are loads of articles on the subject. It’s common knowledge. Lots of factors. New battery formulations that removed expensive materials like cobalt and in the case of LiFePO4, nickel as well. CATL is ramping up manufacturing for sodium-ion batteries that even eliminate lithium and the need for complex battery management logic.
Here are a couple of charts:
https://www.statista.com/chart/23807/lithium-ion-battery-prices/
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/12/battery-prices-have-fallen-88-percent-over-the-last-decade/
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/catls-new-sodium-ion-battery-help-ease-lithium-shortages-2021-08-03/
“No ICE, No Profit”
Brandon is already working hard on making ICE vehicle unprofitable for everyone.
“Brandon is already working hard on making ICE vehicle unprofitable for everyone.”.
Are you an adult? get a grip
Yeah! Nobody in here made childish insults about the last guy!
“No ICE, No Profit”
“no Steam, no profit”
Samuel M. Vauclain of Baldwin Locomotive
“no film, no profit”
George M. C. Fisher, CEO of Kodak when the first digital camera was created.
“No VHS, No Profit”
David Cook, CEO of Blockbuster Video
“No Photo Processing, No Profit”
Preston Fleet, founder of Fotomat
“TESLA only profits from selling environmental carbon credits.
No ICE, No Profit”
Very true. Tesla’s cheap, low quality, and poorly engineered appliances have never turned a profit. Most EVs don’t (add that to the list of reasons why they are comically bad for the market and not a viable alternative to proper ICE cars).
It is no wonder why Tesla has substantially raised the price of their vehicles lately. Not as many carbon credits being sold means they are losing money.
This CEO is ahead of the curve by lightyears. EVs are terrible, there’s no other way to put it. All of these automakers from Tesla to Ford have hyped EVs only to appear virtuous. They know EVs are a joke. They know EVs are extremely harmful to the planet, they know that the business case for EVs is a house of cards, they know EVs don’t really work. But for some reason they feel they need to appeal to the statistically insignificant number of mouth breathers who have been convinced (or the ones doing the convincing like President Xiden) they want an EV and are catering to that loud and misguided group of people.
So how much automotive manufacturing and R&D experience do you drugstore cowboys have? Post your resumes up, please. I’ll wait.
I’ll gladly take the musings of a guy like Tavares over all of you combined any day of the week. He only bought GM’s European operations from Barra and turned them around in a few months after they lost money for decades.
Tavares is right. Idiots like AOC, Brandon, Newsome, Gore, etc. are all ready to pull goals out of their backsides — yet all of them have a combined zero years of meaningful real world experience in anything. And dopes keep bidding up stocks like Tesla because they keep going up. Wow. Great business model there. Why the legacy manufacturers don’t create tracking stocks so their electric operations can get bid up to the moon is beyond me.
Tavares is also right about needing a gradual shift from a quality standpoint. When Detroit went from big cars to small in the 70s — they didn’t have enough time to catch all the bugs in their new engines, transmissions, and platforms. So quality went down the tubes — with lots of you rubes STILL moaning about the X car your Dad bought in 1979 caused you to never buy another GM car again.
BTW, Barra’s all in on electric. Tavares isn’t. Carlos makes money. Mary just retreats from markets she can’t compete in. Care to guess who’s judgment I value more?
100%. If left unchecked, this idiotic forced push towards EVs will result in the death of what’s left of the U.S. auto industry. We’ll all be driving Chinese cars, slave labor reasons. Similar to how CAFE and CAA crippled Detroit.
“This, combined with mounting government pressure to ban internal combustion, has placed a lot of pressure on the industry. Reuters noted that the European Union and the State of California and set goals to end the sale of combustion vehicles by 2035. But other governments have placed even shorter timelines on their demise,”
I find it quite telling with this garbage push towards EVs in the sake of “saving the planet” while completely ignoring the main cause of who’s creating this mess to begin with. No one and I mean no one in the main stream is investigating or even talking about government’s and private corporations heavily involved in Geo Engineering and cloud seeding! I’ve only found one main stream car sight that talks about military tech to mention the Saudi’s recent development of swarm drones messing with their weather.
This push towards EVs by governments IMO has nothing to do with saving the planet, but everything to do with the control of movement by the populace. If lockdowns are aloud to continue with no push back and the rush to EVs become commonplace, prepare yourself for your EV to be shut off remotely keeping you right where you are in any emergency your government deems necessary.
Does this seem dooms dayish? Yes, but consider this to all those who have short term memory. Just a few years ago Florida had a major hurricane/s that caused the state to declare an evacuation. The only problem was all those people in southern Florida who got rid of their ICE vehicles for EV couldn’t make it out of the state or far enough away due a host of reasons people can research for themselves.
This push towards EVs is all about control and nothing to do with “saving the planet”
Yes, I’m sure Brandon has nothing better to do with his time than care whether you travel from Florida to Texas or not.
Good grief.
“they didn’t have enough time to catch all the bugs in their new engines, transmissions, and platforms ”
Translation- they relied on tariffs on import cars and pickups, CAFE rules that favoured large SUV’s, and poor engineering to maintain profits.
So, the company that basically let itself get behind in the “EV race” and relies on selling a crap ton of V-8 powered Ram pickups says “hey, maybe we should tap the brakes on this whole electrification thing.”
Well, it makes sense.
It’s laughable, because Stellantis doesn’t have a say in public policy.
Neither does the public.
Yes, the public does have a say. If you don’t like the government getting behind EVs, vote for representatives who don’t want that. There are plenty of them out there, and you’ll get your chance to vote for them in less than a year.
In all seriousness that is 20th Century thinking. On the major agenda items its going to be Uniparty, the concepts of *true* party affiliation and values are relics of the past. And that is *before* I would even get into election integrity issues.
What, you don’t see much difference between the two major parties?
I get that you’re cynical, but dude…
FreedMike, he’s right. There’s the beltway elite, and everybody else. The elite were untouched by lockdowns, mask mandates and vaccine mandates. It ruined small business (which provides the majority of jobs) and the middle class.
Even Republicans were outraged by the invasion of unarmed people into the Capitol, their inner sanctum, not just Democrats. Even Trump’s three Supreme Court choices declined to hear the Texas challenge to the election, even though 20 other states joined in.
Our intellectual and political elite are self-serving crooks, with Nancy Pelosi investing in industries that have a major interest in legislation under consideration, and even a Federal Reserve member trading in bank stocks ahead of Fed decisions that affected banks.
We can’t depend on elections anymore, when crisis after crisis comes up, to allow millions of extra votes by absentee ballot – that’s what the Texas lawsuit was all about.
136.6 million votes were cast in 2016, but 158.4 million were cast in 2020. Where did those extra 21.8 million votes come from? The population didn’t increase by that much. Did 21.8 million people who didn’t bother to vote in 2016 decide to vote by absentee ballot because it was easier?
Our votes are now meaningless in much of the country.
@Lorenzo Sir, I live in the D.C. burbs and go in the city a great deal. All federal buildings required masks, most federal jobs require vaccines, and yes stores and restaurants were locked down. You mythical “elites” still had to go about their daily business.
No, the Republican Party is not the least bit outraged by what happened on January 6th, 2021. They had the chance to be involved in a bi-partisan investigative panel about JAN 6. There brave and fearless leader, Kevin McCarthy; whose mouth doubles as Trump’s penis holster was against it. That’s not outrage, that’s sticking your head in the sand.
In one of the most critical elections in our nation’s history. Not to be confused with the Crime of the Century that happens every 8-10 years. Did you pause to check to see if that the number of registered voters increased by 20 million? Not chastizing you personally; anytime the winning party works to out-register and out-vote the losing party, the tinfoil-hat conspiracy nuts come out in droves.
Think I’m being a tad harsh? The brilliant, but hair dye challenged, Rudy Guiliani went Zero (0) for Sixty (60) in appealing election results. Two (2) or Three (3) election reversals would get people on the losing side grumbling. When your God-King-il-Duce and his appointed mouthpiece go Ohh! for Sixty; perhaps it’s time to acknowledge he lost. Or just turn up Fox news and look at the pretty bottle blonde.
@Lorenzo – Welcome to the party or back in the USSR.
@Lorenzo:
“136.6 million votes were cast in 2016, but 158.4 million were cast in 2020. Where did those extra 21.8 million votes come from?”
Well, about 11 million of those extra votes went to Trump. Therefore, the increase was fraudulent. Correct?
As to the rest…yes, if people want laws passed or changed, it can be done at the ballot box, your cynicism notwithstanding.
FreedMike, nobody voted for open borders and hyper inflation, mask mandates and vaccine mandates. But there here courtesy of the a senile old grifter. fjb
You hit that nail squarely on the head!
“Even Trump’s three Supreme Court choices declined to hear the Texas challenge to the election, even though 20 other states joined in.’
There were 60 plus cases that went nowhere in the courts and it’s isn’t because of some big conspiracy. The orange baboon lost. No conspiracy.
He may simply be the voice of reason, if not the contrarian, but anyone with an intellect analyses the contrarian if he puts forth valid points. Although in this instance once again I suspect the Bell Curve will be proven correct.
Well, they’ve still got 5,729,694 different Challenger special editions they want to release.
Can’t blame them for that. I’d ride that horse until it died too.
I’m sure some said the same thing about this new fangle horseless carriage too.
But for about 30 years they would have been right and on a long enough time scale I’m dead.
He’s not wrong. Consumers are already struggling to pay for new vehicles, with 84 month loans becoming way too common. EVs are going to be even more expensive. Then factor in our crappy charging network, which doesn’t show signs of much improvement. That subpar charging network also limits who can even buy an EV, when home charging is not an option for renters and those who have to park on the street. So many issues need to be resolved, and 2030 is an extremely tight deadline to be planning on mass adoption.
The fact that the 84-month loans are there – I call them “F150 Mortgages,” by the way – means that they’ll be there for EVs as well.
I agree there’s a larger chunk of folks who are struggling to pay for cars these days, but Stellantis, along with Ford and GM, has stopped selling to this segment.
I also think cheaper EVs will become more common once more expensive ones become more common with better-heeled customers, who generally have a built-in place to charge up – their garages. Those customers are going to be buying EV pickups and SUVs, not Bolts. That’s going to be happening very soon, and I think the non-home charging infrastructure will grow as the EV market grows.
In a way, with EVs we’re replaying the expansion of the auto market in the 20th century. Even after the debut of the Model T in 1908, cars remained a luxury item for many, staying below 50% of households until almost 1950.
EVs are getting cheaper and more plentiful, offering much better value every year.
I think EVs will follow the pattern of a whole range of “new-tech” consumer goods that sold to folks with money first, and then filtered down to “everyone else.” Examples: PCs, laptops, cell phones, smartphones, big screen TVs, and on and on.
SCE2AUX – you can say the same about any new technology, computers, cellphones. EV will get cheap very fast as soon as automakers take it seriously. EV is nothing but computer on wheels and Musk understood it early on. So it is SW stupid. Motors and brakes are cheap.
I wonder if, in the future, the long-term reliability of EV powertrains vs. ICE powertrains will be such that 84+ month vehicle loans won’t be the horrible financial proposition they sound like right now.
Battery costs are already getting to the point where there won’t have to be a price premium for EVs now in the development pipeline. Charging infrastructure will not be all that expensive to build out, and much of it will be paid for by the private sector—free or cheap L3 charging for shoppers will both provide a competitive advantage for retailers and help solve the issues for street parkers that you’re talking about.
So what is Tavares’ motivation here?
He’s lowering expectations for his job, by pointing out how hard it is.
As Stellantis slowly gets outpaced by others in new tech, he can remind his board that it’s better to savor small victories than go to the trouble of winning a war.
“As Stellantis slowly gets outpaced by others in new tech,”
Everyone keeps making comments like this, but I’m not sure what it is based on. What am I missing?
He’s behind the curve and needs time to catch up. Pretty much all of the other big guys are ahead of him in the race to secure raw materials and build manufacturing infrastructure. Until he can catch up, he’s going to be buying components and even whole powertrains from others at a premium, and that’s not nearly as much fun as, well, selling Grand Wagoneers with 6.4 engines at a massive profit. So of course he wants to delay it.
“So what is Tavares’ motivation here?”
Basically, he’s making a self-serving argument for tapping the brakes on this whole EV thing, which makes sense as his company doesn’t have much of an EV product portfolio to begin with, and zero EV product that will sell to U.S. consumers.
My take, anyway.
“So what is Tavares’ motivation here?”
Same as Toyota lobbying against EV’s. They got caught flatfooted and realize they aren’t competitive.
If you can’t compete….LOBBY.
Why are electric cars going to be so much more expensive? They are simpler to build, as well as cheaper, except for the battery. No ICE engine, no transmission, that is many thousand dollars not in electric cars. You say the battery is too expensive, but battery costs have declined drastically over the past few years and shows no decrease in the decline now. Prices for electric cars are declining and will continue to decline further as time goes by. I will never own an electric car, but that is not because I think they don’t make sense. It is just that I am at the age where I will never buy a new car. I wish I was young enough to enjoy the cars of the future. My current car will last longer than I will.
The statement is from STELLANTIS CEO, not FCA ceo, so your argument that his objection to rapid ev development is based on a product portfolio that is heavily based on cheap V8 cars is false.
The real argument is the technology, infrastructure, and economics of EV cars isn’t ready. And forcing arbitrary government timelines will only hurt the adoption of the technology by forcing subpar products to unwilling consumers . He even offers the best remedy to address ev adoption:
“ Tavares suggested that governments slow down, stop fixating on encouraging manufacturers to build EVs, and focus on making them more appetizing to the public by developing the charging infrastructure essential for their existence. ”
You’re right, the “product portfolio heavily based on cheap V8 cars” piece is false. In fact, the V8 product portfolio is made up of non-cheap trucks and SUVs that they inherited from FCA. The car lineup (Challenger, Charger, 300) isn’t all that relevant sales-wise, and they could live easily without them, but if Ram disappeared tomorrow, they’d be t*ts two days from now.
And unlike GM and Ford, FCA never lifted a finger to figure out how to electrify Ram trucks, or anything else for that matter. They were too busy trying to get bought. And now they’re behind. If I were Tavares, I’d be looking for an electrification partner, stat.
They have EVs.
peugeot.co.uk/models/categories/electric.html
citroen.ie/electric-for-all/electric-vehicles.html
I don’t really think Stellantis is hopelessly behind Ford and GM in plug-in development. However, all three are hopelessly behind their lofty 2030 announcements.
True, but if Americans aren’t lining up to buy Leafs or Bolts, they’re not going to line up to buy an electro-Peugeot compact with similar range.
They would buy an electric Ram pickup or Jeep, though. And I didn’t see FCA putting in much work on something like that before the merger. Maybe they’re waiting to see how the F150 EV does, but it it’s a hit – and I think it will be – do they have truly competitive to bring to market?
Leafs and Bolts are the poster children for dorky EVs (I had a Leaf).
Besides the obvious tech and performance advantages of a 2012 Model S, Tesla was brilliant to develop a car that didn’t look like a science project.
So yes, an electric RAM or Jeep could sell well, but they have the added burden of a legacy to uphold.
“The real argument is the technology, infrastructure, and economics of EV cars isn’t ready.”
That’s not really true. It’s definitely here. Technology like lower-cost batteries that are more durable have been invented and manufacturers are at the point where they are in the process of building the factories. That takes a few years. But, they do have these batteries in pilot production and road testing. Infrastructure is fine in many locations, but needs improvement and that’s happening. The economics are definitely there in the new generation of products.
The problem for a manufacturer like Stella is that it takes years to bring a product to market and years to build factories. You never design products based on the environment of the day you start. You have to design for what the technology will be 5 or 6 years down the road when the product actually ships.
Back in the day, I had to design a product that was going to take a year and a half. The Intel 286 processor was predominant when I started. The 386 wasn’t. I designed the product for the 386 architecture for performance and memory capability. Lots of people were upset and grumbling about it because no one had 386’s. When the product was done, it was a different story and the 286 machines were getting tossed in dumpsters at that point. If we had designed for the 286, we would have had a lower performance product just so that it could be sold on a machine that was being rapidly purged from the market.
So, as a product designer, you have to kind of see the future. The economics of producing a product today won’t be the same as the economics on the day it goes into mass production. Battey costs won’t be the same. Charging infrastructure won’t be the same. There could even be further deterioration of the availability of gasoline in some areas.
When a big technology shift like this happens, product differences between manufacturers could be huge. Some manufacturers could get blown out of the water almost overnight if their products have half the performance of the competition. That could happen.
This is an excellent comment.
“That could happen.”
That happened with Big 3 in 1970s-1980s.
If you love gasoline-powered cars, then you will always believe that electric will be ‘subpar’.
It’s long past time to cut burning fossil fuels. It has to happen immediately. People who can afford current EVs will get them. The poors can continue with ICE, and soon enough the prices and infrastructure gains will reach them too.
This isn’t new to Mopar as they had hybrid mules out decades ago that were pretty efficient. I believe the Jeep went 400-450 on 8 gallons of 87 octane. They also had a few pure EV test mules but the battery tech back then wasn’t what it is now.
They just produced cars that they made money off of and that people wanted.
Will wonders never cease.
Using a Manta as clickbait. How totally cool.
Yeah, who cares about EVs, or V8 Ram pickups – I want that Manta!
“run the risk of the public getting subpar products at decidedly higher price tags”
Ironic thing to say considering the product portfolio he manages.
True – we are talking about Chrysler products.
If I worked for Stellantis, I’d be concerned with how out of touch my CEO is.
Critics who say “the EV thing won’t catch on” ignore two key points:
– It’s the politicians who are running the show, not the public or the businesses. Like it or not, that’s how it is.
– Tesla has sold nearly 2 million EVs, and growing, and now profitable. They’ve shown the way to accomplish this. Companies like Stellantis simply don’t want to take the plunge.
Lastly, the tone of this article – and that of Mr Tavares – misses the fact (as usual) that EVs sell well to people who aren’t tree huggers. As long as mfrs stick to the climate change playbook, EVs will be a tough sell to the wider public.
+10,000 on the last point. Teslas are thick on the ground in places that are decidedly NOT about tree-hugging.
And I’d add that manufacturers need to skip the “we’re going to out-weird Tesla” push, and make EVs with conventional styling and without kooky driver interfaces.
I always felt that way about early hybrids…I hated that they looked like oddballs.
In the case of the Prius, it’s been about reducing drag.
Horseradish! Tell that to the designers of the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ and prepare for an extreme side eye!
If you want to commend Toyota for its Priustoric cave drawing on its interpretation of drag, by all means. Toyota doesn’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to combining eye pleasing esthetics and solid aerodynamic drag
“make EVs with conventional styling and without kooky driver interfaces”
That was an important factor when I got my Ioniq. It has real pull-type door handles, driver-facing gauges, and actual buttons and knobs for the HVAC, radio, windows, heated seats, and mirrors.
Shockingly, you have to activate a metal bar to reposition the seat, like right out of the 1960s. What’s more, the glovebox has a plastic pull lever that works every time – no GUI required.
I like the liftback styling, but of course YMMV. At least it’s not emblazoned with huge “EV” badging like some cars were in 2011.
The metal bar is really more 1980s – the ’60s was a lever on the side of the seat, not always easy to get to if the door was close.
The stupidest design I’ve seen – the first-gen Chevy Cruze (one of my kids had one). A release lever on the front of the seat, close to the console, not a bar that goes all the way across. So if the seat was adjusted too far forward, you had to reach across and under the steering wheel to get to the release. Lame, like a lot of things about that car.
I might have to take a look at one of those! I don’t want to go three clicks down to adjust my A/C vents.
Good points but on this: “They’ve shown the way to accomplish this. Companies like Stellantis simply don’t want to take the plunge.”
The pure EV market is not large enough to sustain every current marque and mfg, many of them will not survive if they were all forced to take such a plunge. The late Sergio Marchionne hinted at this in 2014, and I believe he is still correct. People argue about previous technological advancements bringing about cost deflation over time, I say perhaps but I am very skeptical as I know I am not the only person to reach these conclusions.
The larger issue is technocrats have zero accountability and are difficult to dislodge, and most of the current crop complicate matters by displaying their unhinged sociopathy on a near daily basis. There was a time when some media attempted to highlight issues such as these, but they all run the same playbook now and I believe have all be co-opted since consolidation for twenty years has put it all into five or six corporate owners outside of new(er)comers FB and TWTR – it was Carlin, *not any mainstream source*, who first highlighted this.
So has Mr. Tavares missed anything? Could he in fact be correct? Yes and no, yes in that it is business suicide and as currently implemented quite deranged. No in the fact that there are new markets and new business opportunities he may overlook due to bias, but we must remember EV is a largely artificial market which very well could fall flat without unnatural support. Tomorrow should Robespierre reappear and eventually return us to sanity, would Tesla go defunct? Highly doubtful. But will CCIV, err Lucid, Fisker and some of these other marques continue to exist? I very much doubt it, only EV business entities specializing in commercial products would survive IMO. So the entire issue is a slippery slope which cannot be dismissed either way, though I applaud Tavares for daring to speak on it.
Maybe someone could get Ghosn’s opinion on all this? He has nothing to lose at this point.
People are already fed up with high gas prices resulting from Sleepy Joe’s push for green energy.
After the red waves come in 2022 and 2024, the adults will be back in charge, and these EV cut-over dates can be rolled back to something more realistic.
Questions for the man who seems to think the president controls gas prices:
1) Did you blame Trump or Bush when gas prices went up?
2) When gas prices come back down – which they will – are you going to give Biden credit for that?
“the adults will be back in charge”
I want to believe that but the upcoming “adult” generation are not in fact adults themselves. So if we’re just giving the reins back to the 70+ crowd you may be correct but I don’t see this happening for much longer.
The administration is doing all it can to reduce domestic production, while at the same time going hat in hand to OPEC, to beg them to increase production. We’re headed back to the ’70s, when someone else controlled our destiny. I remember waiting in long lines on odd-numbered days after the fall of the Shah of Iran (my plate ended in a 1) to buy gas. It was usually a 30- to 45-minute wait.
Since you brought up the 70s, I’d like to add a point. Events since 1/1/20 have clearly been orchestrated to a degree, who/what/when I’m not going to speculate on but for “why”: this could be caused by Peak Oil and the upcoming world financial away from Kissinger’s Petrodollar.
There are those who believe the 1973 embargo was at least partially brought on due to replacing Bretton Woods which Nixon went off of in 1971. Start to finish the Petrodollar was first adopted in 1973 and other OPEC members were not on board until 1975. Nixon’s resignation may have slowed down or complicated this implementation but it is curious world dollar liquidity and velocity was slowed down during the implementation of a new Western system based on… oil that OPEC members sold.
So today we see an administration purposely curtailing oil production in advance of ISO 20020 which is: “ISO 20022 is an emerging global and open standard for payments messaging. It creates a common language and model for payments data across the globe.”. Sounds like a new financial system to me. I don’t believe the parallels to 1973-75 are coincidence.
“the adults will be back in charge”
I want to believe that but the upcoming “adult” generation are not in fact adults themselves. So if we’re just giving the reins back to the 70+ crowd you may be correct but I don’t see this happening for much longer.
but you’ll also croak out that joe biden is too old.
US regulators are not in charge of this transition. Chinese and European ones are. All a push to burn gas to own the libs will accomplish is making US automakers even less competitive in foreign markets.
I’d posit the question are US automakers at all completive in foreign markets, right now? GM sold Opel and pulled out of Europe. Because of their long time SAIC ventures I suppose they are competitive in the PRC, but how completive I do not know. Daewoo gives them some further Asian exposure and those products are also sold here but on the grand stage GM isn’t completive in any markets outside North America and wherever its SAIC products are sold.
Ford is still active in Europe but last I checked was not profiting there and scaling things down. I’m not sure what Ford is doing in Asia or if it even has a serious presence there.
Chrysler sold some products on and off in Europe prior to Fiat, not sure if this continued under FCA. I don’t consider Fiat’s products to be US products or its US products to be serious Euro or international market ones, so the “US” part never tried to compete anywhere outside of North America. You could argue under Stellantis it is competitive in Europe/South America but “Chrysler” isn’t only the PSA/Fiat product silos. Not sure if any of the Chryco/Fiat/PSA amalgamation was ever serious in Asia.
Another piece of this is the fact the Chinese and Japanese are very nationalistic in product choices, sort of like the US used to be. If Tesla is the only game in town they may be buyers, but if domestic market competitors appear a healthy chunk of those buyers are leaving for those competitors. Now Tesla could still be better in the niche, and it may remain the preferred brand, but it *will* lose market share in both nations possibly other parts of Asia as well. I do not know enough about European markets to make an accurate prognostication, but I would think the major players would own most share if they had competing products with perhaps the foreign leader such as Tesla on top in a small amount of share.
So IMHO for the D3 to hurt themselves in their core (and really only) major N.A. market to attempt to compete in places they either have not been or have done poorly in the past is foolish. Now if we look at this through the lens of Peak Oil, I would agree it spells serious disaster for the US/partial US marques. But otherwise without something superior or unique what is the point? This is why short of Peak Oil, the entire direction of the EV technocracy does nothing but hurt US industry – which may be the point depending on how you want to read the tea leaves.
“Automakers could charge higher prices and sell fewer cars, or accept lower profit margins, Tavares said. Those paths both lead to cutbacks. Union leaders in Europe and North America have warned tens of thousands of jobs could be lost.”
That is a feature, not a bug. AKA the plan.
As pointed out above, Stellantis makes lots of coin on old technology. So, no surprise that they rather slow the ship down. That said, any major disruption in the status quo often brings with it a lot of uncertainty, reliability concerns, and cost pressures. Witness the introduction of emission controls – early designs were a disaster. However, the regulatory pressure forced engineers to come up with reliable, cost effective solutions and we enjoy the benefits from it. I see no difference here. I just wish that there was as much effort made in producing clean electricity…otherwise I’m not sure we are really gaining much.
Even powered by the dirtiest electricity in the US, the operating carbon emissions of an EV are about half those of a comparable gas car. Currently, some of that difference is made up by the carbon intensity of manufacturing the EV, but that’s going to change over time. Even in the worst case where we can’t change the grid at all, shifting cars to electricity will reduce our carbon emissions meaningfully.
@Dal I have seen countless conflicting studies on this. EV’s environmental impact is heavily dependent upon where the energy is sourced from. But they tend to be worse from the environment than a comparable ICE once they’ve rolled off the line. Most research seems to support their making up the difference between 8 and 12 years of ownership. Then again, there are also counties (e.g. Germany and China) that have seen air pollution worsen as electric vehicle ownership increased and energy needs went up.
Bottom line is that it’s less about what vehicles you’re fielding than how the whole system works. Localized EV production using nearby nuclear power? Sounds extremely green. Imported EVs getting all their juice from coal? That’s going to be a nightmare. The same goes for internal combustion vehicles. If we’re having cars/parts and oil shipped in on giant tankers, we’re not being as ecofriendly as we could be.
Nice. I decided not to replace my old jeep with a 4xe because I didn’t want to buy another troublesome Chrysler breakdown machine. The thought of owning another ICE engine with oil changes, failing fuel pumps, shitty env sensors, etc was a huge turn off. I’ll save my pennies until Ford drops a Bronco body on the f-150 lightning platform.
“Stellantis makes lots of coin on old technology”
Silly of them, the new way is making billions by selling nothing i.e. carbon credits. Or top off your coffers by making taxpayers pay for their neighbors cars.
But I’m sure they got it right this time, it’s no longer give us your money or the world will freeze. Or give us your money or the world will warm. Nope, they finally wised up and now they say give us your money or the climate will change like it has since the earth was formed.
If you want to know what technology will be a failure, see what the government backs. Windmills and solar power was also the holy grail promise by the government and that worked out great….No such thing as blackouts in California. This will be expensive for everyone but the government
Sources of electricity in the US in 2020:
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php
Natural gas = 20%
Renewables = 20% (wind and solar together are 10.7%)
Nuclear = 20%
Coal = 19%
Petroleums = 1%
I’d say renewables are certainly doing their part. California’s problems are not due to technology, but politics and regulation fever.
It just occurred to me that Tim Kuniskis, who has a heck of a job ahead of him trying to get his steroidal Hellcat customers to accept an electric replacement for their bellowing muscle cars, probably doesn’t appreciate these comments from his boss much at all.
I get their point of view. Let the others pave the way, bite the bullet, etc, then jump in at the last second.
It’s not like the current crop of cheap cell/smart phone makers had to be there in the brickphone days, or had to start with pagers then briefcase cellphones.
It’s the same with computers, laptops, what ever.
Problem is, developing any vehicle, EV or otherwise, is tech-intensive, time-intensive and capital-intensive. You don’t just “flip the switch” the minute you figure out your competitor has a winner and – voila! – you bring out a competitive model.
If the F150 EV is a hit – and I think it will be – then assuming Stellantis has nothing along those lines in development, it’ll take them several years to come up with a competitive model, unless they want to half-a** it. The last time they half-a**ed an EV, we got that ridiculous electric Fiat 500.
Politicians are generally not too bright.they are puppets of the banksters.Combustible energy cannot be replaced for a long time.The number one polluter and user of fuel is the US forces and they will never be asked to electrify anything. Where are all these electric trains ,buses ships and commercial vehicles.Every single day the world uses 100 million barrels of oil,good luck with the unrealistic goal of that changing dramatically, by snapping your fingers.
Burning the oil in a power plant is far more efficient than burning it in a car. If this was not so, you’d have a personal generator powering your house, and it’s why EVs are rated at 80-150 MPGe. They’re just much more efficient with thew same energy input.
As for the practical problem of powering the military – no argument there. That is as much an issue of politics as it is technology.
Commander, Submarines, United States Navy would like a word about electrification.
Stratos, I believe you asked about the electric trains. I respectfully submit the NYC subway system as exhibit #1 of electric trains.
2nd I believe pretty much all locomotives are diesel electric. The train is powered by the electric engine with the batteries charged via Diesel generators. As noted, above it is more energy efficient to use petrol to create electricity to power a car/train then it is use to use a gas engine.
My Volt routinely got 63 mpg when running on the gas engine.
Well alrighty, they have these things called “apps” for the touch screen on your dash and your non-consumer cellular cell phone. A car maker would be foolish not to install “PlugShare” or “ChargePoint” or SomeOtherCombination of words smashed together to show nearby electric chargers.
I live in the far western suburbs of D.C. The local organic food store has car chargers, how ironic depends on your point of view; the run-of-the-mill grocery store has chargers, and gasp! Wal-Mart has chargers.
Listening to car company CEO’s blather on how they’ll lead the way with their new electric cars and show the way to the future! Or some other clap-trap the propeller heads in marketing have came up with. It’s like listening to a drunk in some bragging how he threw and caught the winner touchdown pass against his bitter high school rivals and then shagged the homecoming queen in the ‘vette he drove all through high school.
Car companies need to take a good long look at Audi. Somewhere in the deep dark evil side of el Scotto I want an S6 for extended long-range high-speed driving but practical el Scotto says drive the Lexus until it dies. Audi still makes some gorgeous and wickedly fast ICE-powered vehicles.
Then there’s the eTron. An attractive, reasonably priced (luxury car market-wise) EV SUV. First one I saw int the wild, the lady owner was plugged in at my local Wal-Mart and well, buying all the crapola you buy at Wal-Mart. Stellantis is either too broke or too pig-ignorant to make an EV Cherokee/Grand Waggoneer. They’re giving up the upper-middle class suburban female wanting an EV SUV market to other car makers.
My 12 Leaf and 19 Ioniq EV both had/have a charger finding feature, but I’d say they’re crap. Tesla’s is good, and I suppose others may do it well.
But yes, PlugShare coupled with Android Auto works pretty well to find chargers. But since I hardly use public charging and my cars have been short range, it’s not yet been a concern for me.
EV’s are great for city dwellers with short commutes, people with homes and chargers in garages and those with second or 3rd cars. That’s about it.
And Scott, you have to know that someone in DC or LA or SF dictating to those not near a Whole Foods charger is hilarious. Nice way to continue to caricature the easily caricatured.
eTron reasonably priced? lol. “Starting at 65,900, plus destination”.
Maybe you didn’t read your post before hitting ‘post comment’, but it’s exactly why EV proponents are made fun of.
@jkross22 Sir, it ain’t a Whole Foods, they have chargers anyway. Did you miss the part about the local grocery store chain (Giant) having chargers and Wal-Mart too?
With the crowd I run with, 60-70k for your ride is not out of line. There are many loaded full size trucks where I work, 60-70k is not out of line at all. FairOaksMotors.com has three Jeep Wagonneers. Cheapest is 75K and the highest priced one is 94K. They’ll sell everyone they get. So yeah, the eTron is competitive in that market. Stellantis is blithely ignoring the high-end EV SUV market.
@JK:
“EV’s are great for city dwellers with short commutes, people with homes and chargers in garages and those with second or 3rd cars. That’s about it.”
I think you’re underplaying that this group is a LARGE chunk of the current buyers for any kind of car. So…if these are the early adopters, the manufacturers selling EVs will have plenty of people to sell to.
Tovarisch just warns French Government that he is going to lay off considerable amount of French, Italian and German workers (Americans are always first to go). Because EVs are simple and can be built with lessor no workers. That’s all.
Actually, if they did less Asian outsourcing, it might not be less. Teslas employee count for the Austin plant I think is projected to be 5 figures, but that’s because it’s sort of a reincarnation of the Rouge Comple. Batteries being made from raw materials brought into the site along with seats and other components made there as well. For the Cybertruck, the steel is coming from a newly built Steel Dynamics plant in Sinton Tx. I think the same plant will be supplying SpaceX as well. So, cut out the Asian outsourcing and maybe there will be a gain in employment numbers.
Let’s wait until EVs are perfected before they’re offered to the public.
Just like they did with ICE vehicles…
Lots of good comments here. The way it looks to me is that Tavares is admitting that his company isn’t competitive in the electric vehicle market, so please slow down. This might make sense if the only competition was other legacy automakers. As other people have pointed out, there ARE other players out there besides the legacy automakers. Most of the other automaker CEO’s have realized that if they don’t succeed in the electric vehicle space, the future will belong to Tesla and the various Chinese electric carmakers. The legacy companies might not go out of business right away, but if they don’t quickly become leaders in the new technology they will end up like Kodak – dominant players in a dying dead-end market segment. Time is a luxury Ford, GM, VW, Toyota and Stellantis don’t have.
Why don’t more people comment on the government putting its finger on the scales?
Great question.
Because they should have their finger on the scales. That’s their freaking jobs.
If a company is causing a society obvious harm, but aren’t paying for it they’re just going to keep doing it now, aren’t they? That’s called an externality. If a company can externalise a cost, they’re sure as hell going to do it.
Air pollution and climate change is an externalised cost. Do you think oil producers and automakers would have removed lead from gasoline if they weren’t forced to? Was that an obvious cost to society? Yes. If left up to themselves, they probably would have pulled a book from big tobacco, and simply marketed the concerns away for as long as possible.
It’s the same shit, all over again.
Laissez faire economics don’t handle this kind of problem. This is what laws, regulation and government are best at.
There’s a lot of talk about how much batteries have improved. But in reality the last major breakthrough was in 1991 when Sony commercialized the lithium-ion battery. For two decades capacity increased by around 8% per year, but that rate has slowed to 5%. There may be promising new technologies out there, but none is even close to commercialization.
But even with all those capacity advances li-ion batteries still have very low energy density. Pound for pound, gasoline stores 80 times more energy than li-ion batteries. That’s why a Tesla battery pack weighs over 1,000 pounds, while 15 gallons of gasoline weighs less than 100. And those 15 gallons will take you further in most cars. Gasoline is an incredible fuel, and it won’t be replaced as easily as many believe.
” But in reality the last major breakthrough was in 1991 when Sony commercialized the lithium-ion battery. ”
Totally untrue. What about CATL commercializing sodium-ion?
“There may be promising new technologies out there, but none is even close to commercialization.”
Again, untrue. LFP is already in production. CATL in the process of building the plants for sodium-ion with mass production in a couple of years. The technologies in Teslas 4680 is in pilot production now and going into mass production next year. Silicon anode batteries are in mass production and wearable maker Whoop is using them in their product which is shipping now.
With the density of gasoline/weight etc, you’re neglecting the inefficiency of a gasoline engine and the weight of the engine and transmission.
But, let’s look at a real comparison. BMW M235i xDrive vs. Model 3 Performance. According to the EPA, the BMW has 343 miles range. Tesla Model 3 Performance 315 miles. The gasser has only 28 miles more range LMFAO. Curb weight on the gasser is 3605 lbs. The M3P is 4,205 lbs, 600 lbs heavier. Not insignificant, but that weight gap will close when the 4680 battery/structural pack version of the 3 is in production.
I wouldn’t call sodium-ion a major breakthrough. From what I’ve read their operating principle is nearly identical to Li-ion, while the lifespan is shorter (fewer charging cycles) and the energy density is lower. The main advantage is lower cost due to more readily sourced materials.
The difference in energy density is significant, even with the thermal losses in ICE vehicles. Since an EV needs a 1,000 pound battery pack to go about as far as an ICE vehicle with 50 pounds of fuel, the EV must lug around a huge amount of dead weight. That takes a toll on tires and other components, as well as roads. Colin Chapman would be horrified by cars this heavy!
But few people ask the most important question: where will we get enough electricity to charge hundreds of millions of new EVs? Our grid is already at the breaking point, with major blackouts tripling in frequency since 2015. With Americans driving 3.22 TRILLION MILES in just their personal vehicles last year, an EV transition will require a staggering amount of new generating capacity.
Wind and solar won’t provide the extra power. Despite hundreds of billions in subsidies those sources haven’t even covered the increase in global energy demand. And growing opposition is making those massive structures more difficult to build.
The best solution would be more nuclear, but the environmental movement has practically criminalized that industry. There are hopeful signs of growing support for nuclear, but that could take years to play out.
So that leaves fossil fuels as the most likely source, which means we’ll be burning more coal and a lot more natural gas. Coal usage is already booming in Europe as they’re paying the price for some very foolish policies. It’s very likely fossil fuels will continue to provide over 80% of the world’s energy, just as they have for generations. And EVs will continue to be fueled primarily by coal and natural gas.
But there’s another possible solution: rationing of electricity. The UK will begin implementing this next May when new buildings (including residential) will be required to have EV charging ports that shut off for 9 hours every day. That’s effectively rationing, because they don’t have enough electricity. And all those German hotrod EVs can’t go from zero to anything without a charge!