Stellantis CEO: ‘Protect European car industry against China’

Tavares is afraid that Europeans will buy Chinese cars en masse in the future. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), he therefore called on the European Union to better protect the European car industry against emerging competition from China. “The price difference between European and Chinese cars is significant. If nothing is done to change the current situation, European mid-range consumers will increasingly turn to Chinese models,” Carlos Tavares told Automobilweek.

According to Tavares, current EU regulations mean that the costs for electric cars in Europe are about 40 percent higher than when those cars are made elsewhere. “If you keep the European market open, we have no choice. Then we have to compete directly with the Chinese.” In that case, companies like Stellantis would probably be forced to move their production abroad. Tavares therefore argues for extra protection for its own European industry. In his view, this should lead to a kind of reindustrialisation of Europe, in which all kinds of activities that have long ceased to be done in this part of the world could return. Tavares said he realizes that this will require a major change in current EU policy. And the sizeable German industry would not like that change. German manufacturers have much closer business ties with China than Stellantis.

It is not the first time that Tavares has sounded the alarm because of Chinese competition. In October he already expressed his fear of ‘the decline of the Western world’. Chinese brands that already only sell EVs would incur less costs than European manufacturers who are currently faced with expensive adjustments by the EU due to the Euro7 standard. Incidentally, he then sought the solution even more from the European car industry itself: “We would have to work more efficiently to beat China. Not only in terms of technology, but also in terms of quality and pricing.”