Stellantis has throttled sales of combustion-engined cars in the UK in a bid to hit government-mandated sales targets for electric cars this year and avoid paying fines.
That's according to the company’s new head of Europe Jean-Philippe Imparato, who added that the strategy will continue until the end of this year.
The UK’s ZEV mandate, which imposes a minimum of 22% electric car sales on manufacturers this year, is becoming a template for what will happen across the European Union next year, when tightening rules on average CO2 levels will force car makers to sell more EVs.
“You have to be compliant. If you are not compliant you're dead,” Imparato told journalists at the sidelines of the Paris motor show last week.
Stellantis is one of the closest among the big car makers to hitting the ZEV mandate targets for 2024, with EV sales running at around 20% after nine months, according to EV-focused analyst firm New AutoMotive.
Imparato confirmed that the target was achieved by reducing sales of combustion engines. “We lost three points of market share but we protected the profitability and we will be compliant,” he said.
The Stellantis brand most badly hit was Vauxhall, which saw sales fall 17% through September. That equates to around 12,500 cars, according to figures from automotive body the SMMT. The brand’s best-selling model, the Corsa, was down 31% in the first nine months, while sales of the Mokka small SUV fell 25%.
Stellantis has criticised the ZEV mandate for forcing car makers to sell EVs ahead of demand. “When you push 20% in the mouth of the consumer and the natural demand is 10%, it has a huge economic impact,” Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said at the Paris show.
Tavares promised a “correction” in the next few weeks to boost profits within the UK, without being specific. One option is to carry out a previous threat to close one of the company’s two van plants in the UK.
“When you are fighting for survival, you have to consider that everything is on the table and nothing should be excluded,” he said.
The UK has jumped the gun on European Union policy from 2025, when tough new CO2 limits are essentially mandating that car makers sell EVs totalling between one fifth and one quarter of all car sales.
Stellantis, for example, has calculated that the EU’s call for a 19% reduction in the average CO2 figure to 93.6g/km will mean 24% of all its EU car sales will have to be electric in 2024, matching the UK requirement for next year.
“If you compare the curve of the ZEV mandate with the curve of CO2 in Europe, the UK anticipates what is written for Europe,” Fabrice Cambolive, CEO of the Renault brand, told journalists in Paris. “It's very interesting for us to see the same trajectory and to see what are the behaviours of the consumers, the companies and our competitors.”
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