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Car manufacturers: To meet emissions, electric car sales must increase by up to 80 percent

by AI | 03.Dec 2024 | Europe in brief AI

Interest in electric cars, however, is currently rather declining. In the first ten months of this year, just under 96,000 were produced in the Czech Republic, and last year it was 130,000 electric cars for the entire year.

Cars on the highway. Photo: Alejandro Martínez Vélez / Europa Press (FILE Photo) 30/6/2023

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Prague – To meet the tightened emission targets next year, domestic car manufacturers would need to sell 60 to 80 percent more electric cars than they currently do, according to the executive director of the Automotive Industry Association Zdeněk Petzl. This represents the sale of roughly 70,000 to 90,000 purely electric cars annually, in addition to avoid looming sanctions. However, interest in electric vehicles is currently rather declining. In the ten months of this year, almost 96,000 were produced in the Czech Republic, and last year a total of 130,000 electric cars were produced. This stems from the Automotive Industry Association’s data.

According to the Ministry of Transport and the association, European car manufacturers face possible sanctions next year for failing to meet emission limits for manufactured passenger and commercial vehicles in a total amount of up to 16 billion euros, which in conversion is roughly 400 billion crowns. Part of this would potentially have to be paid by domestic manufacturers, but their share is currently difficult to determine, because the sanctions will always apply to whole groups, which mostly produce in several countries.

“In the whole EU, new battery electric vehicle registrations would have to rise from the current 13.1 percent of total car sales to 22 percent by 2025. This would mean a return to the level of battery electric vehicle registrations of the year 2023, namely at the level of 15 percent and additional registrations of 770,000 battery electric vehicles. However, this is entirely contrary to current market estimates (EY Forecast), which predict only a seventeen percent expansion of electric cars in 2025, which is significantly below the required level,” noted Petzl.

Czechia and Italy, with the support of other countries, called on the European Union last week to ease the sanctions that are to be applied from next year against car manufacturers who do not sell enough electric cars. According to the Minister of Industry Lukáš Vlček (STAN), it is important for the automotive industry to primarily have the means for innovation and increasing competitiveness. Draining money from car manufacturers for fines for not selling a sufficient number of electric cars is not the right path, he says.

According to Petzl, possible sanctions represent 25 percent of the total budget of the European automotive industry for research and development. This redirection of financial resources thus delays investments in new technologies and modernization of manufacturing facilities, which ultimately slows down the process of decarbonizing road transport, he added. (December 3)

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