I’m pleased to see this article. I’ve commented on a number of sites recently that our rush to ban ICE car sales from 2030 is just giving our car industry to the Chinese. It’s not so much that Europe can’t make EVs, it’s that Europe can’t make them in a way that is price competitive with Chinese EVs.
China controls much of the world’s sources of the minerals needed for EVs and 90% of the relevant mineral processing capacity. There isn’t enough to go around in the first place, so batteries, wiring looms and electric motors are going to become cripplingly expensive for manufacturers without the access that Chinese manufacturers have. Even if I’m wrong about that, the CCP has the capability and motivation to subsidise their manufacturers in order to ensure that European (and US) manufacturers are heavily undercut. The cost of living crisis won’t be over by 2030, so Western consumers will buy Chinese EVs in their droves and put them in their drives (sorry).
Only by delaying the 2030 deadline – scrapping it entirely and relying on free market forces, ideally – can save the European car industry (in which, for the avoidance of doubt, I include the UK industry). Will our politicians realise this in time? I’m not optimistic.

The EU is broken. They have been one of the biggest proponents of EVs, yet they do nothing to manufacture the cars. No doubt they will spend countless billions on subsidies, bringing in all sorts of businesses associated with EVs, and no doubt these businesses will ultimately fail. Here’s a thought, maybe invest in building a competitive tax structure, energy infrastructure and workforce capable of attracting real business.

Watching Net Zero destroy Western Europe in real time is fascinatingly macabre. Germany, in particular, appears to have taken masochism to the next level. Of course Europe cannot hope to compete with China. Not only too late to play, but lower access to raws and burgeoning energy input costs, whilst China benefits from cheap Russian oil. It is hard not to be a conspiracy theorist when one watches the lack of strategic thought/secondary effects.

Why oh why is BMW building the latest electric Mini in China? It beggars belief, profit before morals !!

The vast majority of people, not least in Europe do not like, nor wish to buy electric cars.

Europe slow death is speeding up. It will be interesting how long the civilised behaviour continues before things get rough. Another big question will be where the skilled workers move on to after this? India, China, the US?
Europe needs to take a few steps back, put up with the difficult times and start going a few steps forward.

If the German or European car industry isn’t competitive then it’s not going to survive long term anyway and doesn’t deserve to. Likewise if it cannot master the technological change in time.
Like everything else, cars are becoming global products. Teslas are pretty much the same here as in the US. When we were growing up, US and European cars were pretty much mutually exclusive – very few sold in the other market. The age of national champions is over whether in airlines or cars.
This claim that the Germans are masters of the diesel engine seems dubious.They have also produced the best petrol engines. Why just pick on diesel ? And the French have produced some very good diesel engines for decades.
What the article fails to mention is that the Germans are caught in the classic “Innovator’s Dilemma” (Clayton Christensen’s famous book) where being #1 in an existing market makes quick adaptation very difficult when major technological disruption occurs.
The “Germans pushed us into Brexit” ? You what ? It can’t possibly have been British people knowing and expressing their own views, can it ?

Hopefully our new trade arrangements will promote sales of cars made by our Korean and South Asian partners at the expense of both China and Germany. British consumers need to start using our spending power in politically aware ways.

If someone had wanted to destroy the West and enthrone China as global dictator in a relatively peaceful, so sly you’re not really aware that it is happening, kind of manner, could they have come up with a better plot than the lockdowns and Net Zero combo?

Low emission hybrids with low emission internal combustion engines will win out in the end, plus hydrogen power.

The Chinese through the numerous Western politicians and organisations they have bought up are essentially doing what the West did to Eastern Europe mid 20th century by allowing communism to spread all over it. The economy of all Eastern European states was crippled whilst the West has enjoyed lack of competition and unencumbered development.
Western Europe will now try the taste of their own medicine with the climate change swindle spread by scientists, organisations and politicians bribed by the Chinese for the purpose of crippling its economy and blocking its development

Full automation will be the playground for protesters. The potential will be limitless.

Few in the West truly understand China, They think In entirely different ways from us
Much of their thought process is very deep rooted in Ancient Wisdom most of which is now totally lost to Neo Liberal Western Capitalism
And that means the end of Western geo political, economic and military hegemony for ever
We in the West have no choice but to work peacefully in a cooperative ,sustainable and eco friendly manner with China
If not so Western thinking withers,dies merely tossed into the history bucket and the one labbeled Detritus
Understand what the 4th small
Yellow star upon the Chinese
National Flag represents as it
Explains the heights China has reached globally

While I salute the decline of the German car industry, you would have to be mad to buy a Chinese car. They can’t even build escalators that don’t devour hundreds.