Auto File: EVs in reverse and reality catches up with Volvo
By Nick Carey, European Autos Correspondent
Greetings from London!
Volkswagen’s shock announcement last week that it was considering shutting some plants in Germany and thus engaging in a battle with its powerful unions has remained a hot topic, raising questions about the future of Germany’s economic model.
Interesting solutions have been floated, including that shifting to a four-day week could help address Volkswagen’s challenges.
One thing stood out in Volkswagen CFO Arno Antlitz’s comments defending cost cuts: Europe’s annual car sales will hover around 14 million, down from pre-COVID levels of 16 million. That’s a big drop, especially as new Chinese entrants mean everyone is chasing a slice of a shrinking pie.
The thing is, executives at big car companies have been saying for years now that people are not going to buy cars in the future because everyone will go for short-term rentals or car-sharing services.
But 14 million cars a year sounds a long way from a subscription-service utopia.
Which brings us to today’s Auto File…
EV retrenchment speeds up
Volvo abandons 2030 electric dream
BMW’s hydrogen joy ride
EV plans go awry
The slowdown in demand for electric cars has left automakers hitting the brakes or changing course in recent months and this past week has been no exception, with Toyota slashing EV production plans by a third for 2026, according to a report from the Nikkei business daily.
The Japanese automaker now aims to make 1 million EVs in that year, instead of 1.5 million, meaning a drop in output equivalent to a car assembly plant or two.
Volkswagen’s battery unit PowerCo is going to build just one of two planned production lines at its Salzgitter plant in Germany because of weak demand, while Northvolt will halt cathode active material production in Sweden as the battery startup tries to cut costs.
Meanwhile, Renault’s CEO Luca de Meo warns that slowing EV demand means Europe’s auto industry could face fines of 15 billion euros for failing to comply with EU CO2 emissions targets.
The news is not all good for Chinese EV makers as they expand into new markets. As Reuters correspondent Daniel Leussink reports, BYD has found it hard to get a foothold in Japan, where EV demand is sluggish and foreign automakers have had a rough ride. You can read about it here.
And an increasingly crowded market may soon have yet more company. As Reuters correspondent Aditi Shah reports here, India’s Reliance Infrastructure is also considering making EVs and batteries.
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Xi Jinping courts Norway
Piedmont Lithium pulls back
Volvo bows to the inevitable
As other automakers pulled back from ambitious EV targets, Volvo had stuck to its own plans that its sales would be 100% electric by 2030.
No longer.
As Reuters colleague Marie Mannes reports here, Volvo has also scaled back.
Given the slowdown in demand for EVs, going all electric has become an incredibly steep road to drive for anyone who is not a pure EV maker like Tesla.
Volvo now says that by 2030 between 90% and 100% of its car sales will be fully electric or plug-in hybrid models. Up to 10% should be mild hybrids, where electric power occasionally backs up the combustion engine.
Like its peers, the Swedish automaker owned by China’s Geely is beefing up its plug-in hybrid offering to drive profits, starting with a revamped version of its XC90 hybrid.
After sticking to its 2030 all-electric target long after others backed off, Volvo’s head of strategy described its new approach as “pragmatic.”
BMW goes for it with hydrogen
Long a proponent of hydrogen as a possible route to zero-emission cars, BMW says it will launch its first hydrogen-powered vehicle in 2028.
Japan’s automakers are big fans of hydrogen cars and have led the charge with hydrogen fuel cell technology. Indeed, BMW’s hydrogen fuel cell car has been developed using technology from Toyota, which will help the German premium car company to keep costs down.
BMW has been testing a hydrogen passenger car, the iX5 Hydrogen, with a range of 500 km (310 miles) that can refuel in three to four minutes, though limited hydrogen fueling infrastructure in Europe makes finding somewhere to fill up challenging.
It says its hydrogen vehicle would be an existing model with a hydrogen fuel cell, without giving further details, including price or production volume.
Trump has a job for Tesla’s Musk
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said if he wins the U.S. election in November, he has a job for Tesla CEO Elon Musk: heading a new government efficiency commission.
Trump provided few details but said the new commission would eliminate "fraud and improper payments" within six months of being formed.
Given that investors have already grumbled about how much time Musk spends away from Tesla and focusing on the growing list of problems at his social media platform X, meeting that ambitious target of wiping out fraud could provide a further unpopular distraction.
Musk, who back in 2021 took on the modest title of “Technoking of Tesla,” responded to Trump’s proposal by saying he would be honored to serve, adding "No pay, no title, no recognition is needed."
Fast Laps
Chinese new car sales fell in August for the fifth straight month, dropping 1.1% versus the same month in 2023, but sales of fully electric and plug-in hybrid models rose thanks to subsidies for buyers trading in more-polluting models.
U.S. regulator the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is proposing requiring some future vehicles be redesigned to reduce serious or fatal injuries in crashes involving pedestrians where they strike the hoods of pickup trucks or SUVs that do not currently meet international pedestrian protection standards.
Japan will hand out more subsidies for EV battery production, pledging as much as $2.4 billion to support projects from Toyota and other major companies to boost its battery supply chain.
A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers has asked the CEOs of six major auto parts retailers if they bought products from Chinese company Qingdao Sunsong and its U.S.-based subsidiary that may have evaded tariffs, according to letters seen by Reuters.
Stellantis is recalling 1.46 million vehicles worldwide due to a software malfunction in the anti-lock brake system that can increase the risk of crashing.
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Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise
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