Half a million jobs are at risk if the European Union focuses solely on the production of electric cars. Suppliers within the car industry fear this.
If it is up to the European Commission, petrol and diesel cars will disappear from showrooms within fifteen years. That transition to a purely electric car range could cost half a million jobs at suppliers. This is reported by the European industry association for automotive suppliers (CLEPA) on the basis of a new report, where Het Financial Newspaper wrote about before. The 226,000 jobs that would be created by increasing electric car production can only make up for part of the loss. In addition, employees often require different training for this.
CLEPA advocates, among other things, a gradual transition so that many Europeans do not suddenly lose their jobs. In addition, the EU must also be open to “all available solutions, such as the use of hybrid technologies, green hydrogen and renewable sustainable fuels”, says Secretary General of CLEPA Sigrid de Vries in an explanation. According to the organization, 17 million people work for automotive suppliers in the EU.
The CLEPA warning does not stand alone. Earlier, a French interest group also sounded the alarm, because in France it is feared that the switch to purely electric driving could cost a quarter of the jobs in the French car industry. In Germany, the warning from Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess was particularly striking. He would have warned of the loss of 30,000 jobs at his group due to the transition. Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares even fears it could break automakers and the industry being pushed to its limits by EU targets.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl