Stellantis CEO questions EV mobility fix

STELLANTIS CEO Carlos Tavares has told attendees gathered for the Freedom of Mobility Forum that he doubts that electric vehicles are a solution that will work for consumers in all parts of the world.

He said EV battery technology needs to improve considerably to become lighter, and to utilise new chemistries that do not require such large volumes of raw materials in their construction.

“We should move away from a dogmatic thinking where one size fits all,” he said.

“I don’t think this is going to work. What I would like to add is that the current EVs can be a solution for some of our societies.”

Mr Tavares said that electric vehicle batteries will need a “very significant breakthrough in terms of chemistry” to cut their weight in the coming decade, and that the 450kg of raw materials currently required to create each new EV battery pack “does not look like a very reasonable outcome” from an environmental perspective.

“The industry, based on new chemistries, needs to achieve in the next decade a breakthrough in terms of power density of the cells, so that we reduce by at least 50 per cent the weight and the raw material usage of EVs – I think that’s on the way,” he explained.

Mr Tavares said that it does not make sense that the 450 additional kilograms of raw materials put into the manufacture of an electric vehicle provides a “decent” range of just 400km.

“That is going to be broken over the next decade by new chemistry, which by the way, hopefully, will solve the problem of the scarcity of lithium,” he added.

In less developed nations, access to the large volume of electricity required to charge electric vehicle fleets is another critical roadblock.

Speaking at the Freedom of Mobility Forum this week, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro professor of energy economics Roberto Schaeffer said around 800 million people globally do not have access to electricity, while many more do not have a stable power grid on which to rely.

Mr Schaeffer, who studies how society can reach net-zero emissions, said viewing EVs as a widespread global option is a “global north perspective”, which refers to regions such as Europe and North America.

Overall, he believes biofuels are a better alternative.

“Electric mobility is not the solution, at least in the next 20 or 30 years, when we really need to go to net zero,” he told those gathered for the Freedom of Mobility Forum.

“We have to think about energy poverty. Transportation poverty is a real thing in the global south. We have to have in mind that there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to mobility.”

Mr Tavares also said he did not believe hydrogen was the answer as a viable technology for current mass mobility because of its “sky high” cost, even if the energy used to produce the fuel is clean.

“I am afraid that, for the time being, affordability is going to be a major showstopper for hydrogen,” he said.

“For the near future, it is (possibly) going to be a solution for fleets of big corporations, but certainly not for normal citizens.”

Freedom of Mobility Forum speakers also shared views on car sharing, public transportation, and even non-motorised mobility options to serve the world’s population – even if many in developed nations are not yet ready to adjust their transportation habits.

According to a YouGov survey conducted in Brazil, France, India, Morocco, and the United States, one in four participants said they have not yet changed their transportation choices to limit their environmental impact and do not plan to do so.

This is especially true in the United States where almost 40 per cent of respondents said they have no plan to adjust their transportation habits – particularly those who live outside of major metropolitan centres or are of an older demographic.

“Gen Z and millennials are by far those who are most prepared to make changes in their transportation choices to limit their impact on the environment,” said YouGov France general manager Alexandre Denieau.

“Additionally, they are the demographic most likely to agree to stop using means of transport where they are the only passenger.”

With Automotive News and Reuters.