“The automotive industry urgently calls for an ambitious and structured automotive industrial policy that can compete with those in other regions of the world, while safeguarding and promoting free trade around the globe.” This is what the president of Acea and CEO of the Renault group Luca de Meo indicates in a letter to the EU summits to which the sector requests “consistent” regulatory choices with an overall approach “to help face the current challenges of the automotive industry”.
De Meo points out that «the automotive industry is an economic powerhouse for Europe and is leading the transition towards zero-emission mobility. However, recent trends show that it is gradually losing ground to its main global competitors. The response of policy makers to the challenges facing the sector is of paramount importance.”
According to the Italian manager «We need a European industrial policy to be able to balance the global effects of the American IRA (Inflation reduction act) and we would be happy to give our contribution because I think that if industry said what the plan should do “it would be more effective. The value chain of electric vehicles is completely different from that of combustion engines – underlines de Meo -. Companies are already investing but it is clear that this transition will take some time”.
In the document addressed to EU leaders, the president of the car manufacturers highlights how Europe is “now the only geographical area that abandons technological neutrality as a pillar of its regulatory framework. Considering it in the light of the decarbonization objective, it remains to be seen whether this choice is the best one”. “Today – he observes -, from a scientific point of view, high-tech hybrid technology can compete in terms of CO2 footprint”.
Proposal on Euro7 unnecessarily harmful