Vauxhall’s owner Stellantis warned that it may stop production in Britain unless the British Government does more to encourage demand for electric cars or changes its current electrification policies.
Maria Grazia Davino is the top executive of the company in the UK and she has warned that the UK’s EV quotas will be tougher due to the slowing down of sales for battery-powered cars. She said that if the market became hostile to us, we would evaluate producing in other countries. The Stellantis production in the UK may stop.
Her comments follow those of Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares who called Britain’s EV Policy “terrible”, and said it threatened to bankrupt automakers.
The company, which is the owner of Vauxhall and Peugeot brands as well as Citroen, Jeep, and Citroen, has said that it is evaluating the future of its entire UK operation.
In both Luton, and in its Ellesmere Port plant in Cheshire, it directly employs over 2,500 people. In 2023, the company will produce 90,000 diesel cars in Luton and just over 4,500 electric vans at its Ellesmere Port factory in the last three months of 2018. Luton is planning to start producing larger battery vans in 2025.
Davino, speaking at the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders annual summit held in London on February 2, said that the UK’s quota system, which requires manufacturers meet EV targets and increase annually, has put the UK financial return of the company “under pressure”.
The warning comes as car executives continue to oppose the government’s EV quotas. The EV target is 22 percent of total car sales in this year and will increase every year until 2030, when it will reach 80 percent.
The scheme includes concessions to reduce the chances of carmakers paying fines.
The EV market is growing slower than expected. This has led to several carmakers warning that they may miss their targets. Ford’s former European boss Martin Sander said last month that Ford would move petrol models to another country to avoid crippling penalties due to weak EV demand.
Davino stated that the company would need to find the balance between the mandate of the government and the needs of the business. A decision about the future production in the UK is likely to be made within a year.
In the UK, Stellantis sells about 14 percent of electric cars, including those from the Peugeot, Citroen and Fiat brands. Almost 8 percent of its vans have battery models.
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