Germany has suffered a “spectacular” drop in electric car sales as the European Union faces growing calls to delay its net zero vehicle targets. [emphasis, links added]
The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) said sales of new battery-powered electric vehicles (EV) in Germany plunged by nearly 70pc (percent) to 27,024 in August.
In France, the EU’s second-largest market for battery electric vehicles behind Germany, deliveries fell by 33pc to 13,143.
ACEA said “the spectacular drop” in both countries meant that only 92,627 battery electric vehicles were registered across Europe last month, a fall of 43.9pc compared to a year earlier. This drove a wider 18pc drop in new car sales across the EU.
The collapse in EV sales comes amid concerns about their range, high prices, and the lack of charging infrastructure across the EU.
Felipe Munoz, a global automotive analyst at JATO Dynamics, said: “The reality is that whether you look at business or private, electric vehicles do not convince yet.”
There are concerns about the demand for EVs among British drivers too. Separate data showed that the growth rate of EV sales in the UK had dramatically slowed.
Some 213,500 EVs were sold in the first eight months of 2024, up by 10.5pc compared to the previous year. That compared to annual growth of 40.5pc over the same period in 2023, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders (SMMT).
Mike Hawes, head of the SMMT, said earlier this month: “Encouraging a mass market shift to EVs remains a challenge and urgent action must be taken to help buyers overcome affordability issues and concerns about chargepoint provision.”
Mr Munoz added that Germany’s EV slump was fueled by economic uncertainty and the EU’s new tariffs on China-made electric cars, which has pushed up prices at the more affordable end of the market.
He predicted there will be “more problems” for Germany in the coming months amid waning enthusiasm for EVs among corporate fleets.
Mr Munoz said: “I don’t think we will see growth. I’m not saying that we will continue to see these big drops as we just saw in August because sooner or later measures will be taken by the government because of strong lobbying from carmakers in Germany.”
Earlier this month Volkswagen warned it may have to close a factory in its home market in the face of slumping sales. The carmaker has also scrapped a decades-old promise to protect workers’ jobs, with fears as many as 15,000 roles could be at risk.
The EV sales crisis prompted the ACEA to call for “urgent action” to address new EU net zero car sales rules that will leave European electric car manufacturers at risk of hefty fines.
The European Commission, which creates and enforces EU law, is preparing to introduce new rules for car and van makers designed to slash carbon emissions and encourage the adoption of electric vehicles.
The new rules require all new European cars to produce no more than 93.6g (3.30 ounces) of CO2 per kilometer. Brands will be fined €95 ($101) for each gram of CO2 per kilometer over the limit, multiplied by the number of cars sold.
The ACEA said the “continual downward trajectory” of EV sales in the bloc meant manufacturers would be at risk of multi-billion euro fines and said the new rules needed a rethink.
It warned that demand for EVs was still well below the level needed for the EU’s new vehicle emissions rules to work effectively. …snip…
Top carmakers including Volkswagen, BMW, and Renault have already suggested pushing back the targets, which would see companies fined for failing to comply.
Meanwhile, Italy urged the EU to pause its “absurd” plans to ban petrol cars by 2035 amid concerns the policy risks triggering the automotive industry’s collapse.
Read more at Yahoo! News
The first problem is the non scientific reason for EV’s anyway; that is, CO2 has nearly no effect on the climate. IN the history of the planet CO2 has never caused the climate to warm or cool even when there was 10 times as much CO2 in the atmosphere. This is nothing but a scam started by the Club of Rome and perpetuated by the United Nations, the WEF and billionaire elitist that holiday in Davos, who are using CO2 to reach their goal of world governance which will be without democracy and capitalism. All of this means the race to totalitarianism, similar to that in every Communist country in the world. It takes 5-6 times the mining to make an EV; that is equal to about 70,000 miles of driving an average gas powered vehicle. In the USA EV’s are a 2nd or 3rd vehicles in a family. There is one sentence that will explain how totally inefficient EV’s actually are; and that is; 80lbs of gasoline equals 1000 pound battery. Any grade school student can figure this out and that is why they are so impractical. The battery chargers to charge an EV can reach 350 kilowatts at which is the amount of average power per hour of 280 homes. Gas stations that convert to electric charging stations will require the power of a steel mill or a small town. Most of this information is from Mark Mills, an energy expert in the USA. He suggests that because of the mining required for EV’ s and the massive electrical infrastructure required just for EV charging , that EV’s will be more expensive to operate that gas powered vehicles. EV’s will not get cheaper mostly because of the mining and of course the upgrade of the electrical power required. That is why this is not going to happen, but that won’t stop. governments with this idiotic agenda from trying, 95% of all goods and people transported today use fossil fuels and this will not change any time soon.
I’ll expand on your comment about the cost of mining. When an element is first mined the ores extracted are those containing higher concentrations. When these run out, they move to ores with lower and lower yields. This means to get the same amount of an element such as lithium, more ore has to be mined and the cost goes up. There is also the supply and demand factor. As supply diminishes, the cost goes up. The cost of making electric vehicles is going to continue to increase which is very bad because right now cost is one of the reasons sales are not good.