Mentionsy

What does it mean for Europe and Poland and for the world?

It means that we have driven around the vehicles with combustion engines for the last more than 100 years and in the next decades that is going to change completely.

So this is one of the biggest revolutions in mobility in history.

Transition to Electromobility allows us to solve a number of those big problems that we have with combustion engines and still keep all the good things that we have with personal mobility.

So actually in the life of a normal person or in the life of a company, not that much will change.

You will still be able to drive around the country, go to work, etc.

I do think it's not the end of the transition because autonomy and you know people talk about this as if it's science fiction but you know in San Francisco or in Texas I have very significant sort of shares of people taking autonomous taxis happening on the road like in San Francisco it's like 30% of the market.

If it's happening there on the road, it will come to Europe as well.

That's the next step.

And I'm not sure that will ever be the case.

And now I'd like to invite you to tackle the question regarding the practical difference between battery vehicle and the plug-in hybrids.

Why, from the perspective of the transition and everyday users, are plug-in hybrids often not good enough, in your opinion?

I'd like to hear your perspective on the place of immobility in EU climate policy.

So the question is, is Europe going to try and compete in this space?

The thing is that when things change, there's an opportunity to do things differently and to also change, you know, where the value add is created.

I mean, for example, supply chains, which are important for our technological independence, the power of Europe.

If we don't have that industrial base in Europe, we will be vulnerable to economic coercion by China, which is what we're seeing on the critical mineral exports, but in the future you might see that on other technologies as well.

You've got China, you've got the United States, Europe, Japan, Korea.

Amongst those big car markets, China is the absolute leader when it comes to electrification.

But the clear second...

On the one hand, there has been a politicization of electric cars.

So it has become a political topic where progressive people say, oh, it's very good because it's good for the climate and then less, you know, conservative people say, oh, we don't want this because we don't want the government to force us to do this.

I think we need to dial down the debate on this a little bit.

In the end, what we're looking at is a new technology.

What does the sector gain and what does it lose when the entire logic of climate policy is challenged?

I mean the situation when the Green Deal is questioned and challenged by the Europeans.

I think we can say that there is some kind of a trend in Europe right now.

The big problem for industry is when you create lots of uncertainty.

In 2022 we agreed that the future for the automotive industry was electrification.

Now, for the last years, we've been debating, oh, maybe it is, maybe it is not.

What that means for a company is that first you tell them to make a big investment in a new technology.

So they build new factories, they make deals with their suppliers, they go and buy stuff, they plan.

And then you say, oh, actually it's not true.

So that means they lose billions of euros.

I think what we need is we need clear direction of travel and that gives the industry the certainty and the visibility that they need to make the long-term investments.

The question is not so much whether the target, whether absolutely every single car that is sold in 2035 is electric.

Maybe there will be a few cars that are not electric.

That's not the point.

You can continue selling some of the old cars.

The question is, what is the direction of travel?

Because this is a complete change for the industry and they cannot make these investments if there is uncertainty.

I think what's interesting in the automotive industry is that there is, between the major car makers, I think there is agreement that electrification is a very big part of the future.

So even the most conservative European car makers say that 50% of cars will be electric in the future.

The discussion is whether it's going to be 50% or 80% or 90% or 100%.

If you look at the cars on the market today, you have, take the ID.3, you compare that with a Golf.

The Volkswagen ID.3 is maybe one or two thousand euros more expensive than a Golf in Germany.

Volkswagen is coming with a Polo equivalent and a smaller car, 25,000, 20,000 euros.

Now, this is the result of technology that existed a few years ago in the market.

Because cars, you know, once a car comes to the market, it has taken two, three years to build that vehicle.

So the technology in that vehicle is two, three years old.

If you look at the technology that exists today, if you look at the battery prices...

If you look at what is possible in China today, it is clear electric cars will become the same price as combustion engine cars and even cheaper.

And then once you start factoring in electricity, which is much cheaper than petrol, and once you start thinking about a car not just as a vehicle that you drive around, but as a battery on wheels, a vehicle that you can use to power your home, to use your solar energy, to also send electricity back to the grid, then you can make money on that.

Mówimy o inwestycji, ale teraz widzimy globalną wojnę finansową.

In Europe for a very long time we thought that the world was one open market and you could buy everything, you know, what you wanted anywhere in the world.

But if we don't do that, we will end up in a place where China controls the entire e-mobility supply chain.

It is certain to use this to the advantage of its own companies.

It's going to be very hard for the European automotive industry to compete globally if it doesn't have a strong base in Europe.

Just to sum up this part of our conversation and to highlight the main takeaways, let's confront with the myth or the truth, I don't know, whether the immobility development in Europe is on the collision course with the EU's efforts on the technological neutrality and independence or not, in a short and a long perspective.

The longer story is that yes, you can have diversity, you can have technology, you need to be open, but you cannot tell your industry to invest in ten things at the same time.

And that's ultimately what those car companies need to be competitive in the future.

It's an ecosystem of actions taken in the aim of building up the EU industry stronger and stronger.

So you're only gonna do that if you know for sure that there's a market.

If you are a charging company, then you go to your investors and you say, oh, we have an idea we're gonna place fast chargers all across Poland.

If the next thing the government does is say, oh, actually we don't know, maybe we wanna go for hydrogen or biofuels, well, you know, basically the business case for that company is dead.

The same thing for the grid operator.

Like, the difference between a world where we have lots of electric cars and we don't is very significant.

Punktem tego phase-out date 2035 było udostępnienie wiadomości wszystkim ludziom w ekosystemie, że tak, idziemy w tę stronę.

What are the three biggest drivers powering the growth of immobility in the EU?

What's pushing the transition forward and what kind of policy is needed?

Right now we are still in a market where policy and in particular the EU CO2 standards drive the market.

This is what is forcing the big legacy carmakers to invest in new EV platforms to increase the sales of the vehicles.

The fact that we now have companies like Tesla, but in particular also 10 Chinese companies or 20 Chinese companies that most people have never heard of except for BYD.

Because companies like Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW, they are present in the Chinese market.

They are exposed to this competition.

If they want to survive in China, they need to be good at electric cars.

I think the third point and that's in particular true at national level is it's do you have good incentives?

And so that's where company cars and purchase subsidies and things like the availability of charging.

Myślę, że to, co widzimy w Polsce, jest to, że ostatnio te inwestycje są lepiej połączone, więc od razu widzimy, że rynek zaczął się wzmocniać.

Nie jest to wyraźna ekspresja twojej identitety, twojej polityki.

Co widzimy jako przeszkodę i co jest oczekiwaniem, że transformacja się zmieni?

We're going to be at 20% in 2025, maybe like 25% next year, 30% the year after.

It's something that normal car buyers and SMEs and one-man companies, that they buy and it becomes normal.

Basically, that is for me the measure of success.

This is something the European Commission is working on.

I mean, on December 10th, the European Commission is expected to publish the so-called Corporate Fleets Proposal, which would require 60% electric vehicles by 2026 and 100% by

I to, co widzieliśmy na rynku samochodów elektrycznych, to całkowicie się rozwinęło.

So that is the case in Belgium, where everybody has a company car, and now it's like 50% of new company car sales are electric.

European Commission looked at that and said that is a great way to boost the market in Europe and to do it in a way that it doesn't put too much pressure on normal consumers.

We do it through tax changes, we make it attractive and we create a big market for the vehicles that European car producers are trying to sell.

On the 10th of December the Commission proposes a law that requires member states to put in place tax policies and incentives that mean that the corporate car sector goes almost entirely electric by the end of the decade.

Now half of them are electric.

And I can tell you, there has not been a revolution.

It's fine, because these cars are very good cars.

I think this is for me the single most important thing.

If it were up to me, I would keep the 100% electric by 2035, but I understand politically that's maybe not possible or not desirable, but what is really important is that we don't start creating a lot of confusion in the industry, because I don't think that's in the interest of Europe or Poland or any of the countries.

So, nevertheless, let us look to the future with optimism, but also realism.

William Todts, the Executive Director of T&E Brussels.