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The European car industry is in crisis. The results of the European industry in 2023 were record-breaking (analysis by Gemini).
The crisis is rearing its ugly head: Mercedes is selling its silverware and handing over its legendary retail network to investors. BMW shares were on a downward spiral this week. The VW brand has brought the severance program (which has been running for a year) into the press and promises a “turbo bonus” for volunteers. Audi is on a communicative dive after a change in the Board of Management.
Only at Stellantis is Carlos Tavares looking for a successor, because he knows that it won’t get any better.
And Luca de Meo, CEO of Renault and President of the manufacturers’ association ACEA, writes a “letter to Europe”.
Luca is the right person for this letter
Because he is the prototype and role model of a European and at the same time a connoisseur of the industry.
Luca de Meo speaks the five major European languages fluently: Italian, French, German, English and Spanish. He has worked in Italy, Belgium, Germany, Spain and now France. He has worked for Toyota, Fiat, Audi, Volkswagen, SEAT/CUPRA and now Renault.
One of his standard statements behind closed doors: “This industry is full of bullshit.”
That sounds aggressive. You have to know that: Personally very approachable and a visionary manager. He produces new ideas on the assembly line. But he pursues important projects over decades – even against the resistance and deep-seated convictions of car managers.
As CEO, he managed the launch of the Fiat Cinquecento and was recruited to the Volkswagen Group in 2009. Two years later, the up! was launched on the market. From 2015, he positioned SEAT as the development center for the ID.2 family, the Volkswagen Group’s small electric platform. At Renault, he has once again become the anchor of the brand with the Clio, R 5 and Megan, while Capture, Austral, Arkana and Espace earn the money.
The pan-European small car is what will be remembered of the Brandbrief and Luca de Meo in 20 years’ time.
The branch we are sitting on is very strong.
The “bullshit” in European industry is the result of a Babylonian confusion of interests.
The main problem is that the industry is divided, pursuing old rivalries, and politics and industry are pulling in different directions.
We are experiencing the perfect automotive cacophony in Europe.
THAT’S WHY Luca de Meo reminds us of what the car industry in Europe has in common.
The role of the automotive industry for Europe is too often underestimated. This industry alone accounts for 8% of GDP in the EU. Almost a tenth of all economic activity in the 27 EU countries depends on this industry. The automotive industry accounts for a quarter of all R&D investment in Europe and over 20% of all tax revenues (372 billion euros) in the European Union.
At the same time, the focus of car sales has shifted to Asia, where 51% of all vehicles are already sold. China is focusing on a long-term electric strategy.
The automotive industry is the largest supply chain on the planet. And it is global: all countries are interdependent via this supply chain.
These dependencies are complex. More complex than many people want to admit and can understand (based on their prior knowledge). And this dependency is interpreted differently by the global players and used to their respective advantage.
The future of the European automotive industry will be decided on the international market: What role will Europeans play in this global supply chain in 10 or 20 years?
US promotes, CHN plans, EU regulates.
All the governments of the major industrialized nations take the automotive industry very seriously. It may not be the most important industry, but it is very important. Mobility is strategic.
With the Inflation Reduction Act and the Chips Act, the US government has more favorable conditions for establishing the supply chain in North America. In this way, the USA is trying to become less dependent on Chinese dominance in electric vehicles.
China has already established dominance in the entire supply chain for electric vehicles. From raw materials, research and development to cell production, production capacities for electric vehicles, charging infrastructure, generation of renewable energies and battery recycling, China is systematically building global dominance and is not letting market fluctuations slow it down.
According to de Meo, the EU, on the other hand, burdens industry with seven new laws every year, tying up up to 25% of research and development capacities. This is missing for the five other challenges in Europe that affect us all:
- The decarbonization of transport.
- The switch to software-defined vehicles (SDV)
- The technological transformation, for example in battery technology.
- Access to stable, low-cost raw materials and energy.
- The education and training of 25 million affected employees.
For me, the last point is the most important when it comes to finding answers to the challenges: what would happen to many laws if legislators had a better understanding of the complexities of the automotive supply chain? Are customs barriers for cars from China an advantage for Europe? Who will develop the technical solutions for decarbonization, SDV, battery technology? Who will shape EU geopolitical and industrial policy in such a way that access to raw materials is secured and energy is available infinitely and almost free of charge?
The current generation has brought us this far. A lot is changing now. The world of 2030 will look very different from the world we have known until then. We need new skills and new approaches to meet these challenges.
The 25 million employees are not just in the automotive industry. According to ACEA, the automotive industry provides direct and indirect employment for 13 million EU citizens. This includes 2.4 million jobs in manufacturing.
An Airbus consortium for the European small car.
Luca de Meo calls for a European industrial policy.
Because we in Europe have many common interests. The challenges are identical (see above). The experts must come together and define long-term, common goals. The laws must form the framework and ensure that these long-term, common European goals are achieved.
What is needed is not more laws and fines, but intelligent framework conditions that allow us Europeans to achieve common goals.
We want decarbonization. The prerequisite for this is green, cheap electricity in abundance – then electric vehicles also make sense. To achieve this, today’s generation capacity must not only be decarbonized, but doubled at the same time. Today’s generation, transportation and storage technologies are still too expensive and too inefficient. In 10 or 20 years, we will experience technical breakthroughs globally – the question is what role Europe will play in this.
Luca de Meo calls for more space for science and technology research.
Give the public and private players more freedom and more responsibility again to develop mobility and the right cars. He names 10 projects (see illustration).
| European small car | Electrification of the last mile | Renewal of the vehicle fleet |
| Expansion of charging infrastructure | Commodity security for the EU | Secure access to chips |
| EU standards for SDV | EU industry metaverse (digitalization and tech investment ecosystem) | EU standards for battery recycling |
| EU hydrogen infrastructure |
Luca de Meo’s pet project is the small European car: the Cinquecento-Clio-up! (a better name is yet to be found). Because these small cars, for which Japan is famous, save up to 75% of the resources used. That’s even more than the switch from combustion engines to electric!
And in doing so, he reminds us of a successful European project: Airbus. No European country alone is capable of producing a player in the aerospace industry. But together, France, Germany, Spain and the UK produce civil and military aircraft on a global scale.
Nevertheless, one of the most important projects is missing from the list.
Please add: Cross-industry mobility education platform.
All manufacturers, suppliers and dealers are currently trying to prepare their staff for the new technologies and challenges. Enormous resources are being deployed and all avenues are being used to meet the challenge of training and further education.
And they all do the same thing. But independently of each other. The waste of resources is enormous.
This is because the training programs are almost identical.
Why don’t we come together and build a common education platform for all Europeans, like the European small car? For employees in the industry, but also for trainees and students. As a basis for more research and technical development. As a jumping-off point for the standardization that the industry so urgently needs.
An entire ecosystem of universities, universities of applied sciences, business schools and private educational service providers could be established here. Content and learning formats can be very high quality and yet very cheap per participant through scaling.
History shows: Education offensives always precede an upswing in research and development, which in turn leads to greater competitiveness of an economy.
Initial investments could be made by the EU, whereby its main task would be to create a legal framework. Existing structures such as the European Institute for Innovation & Technology are a first approach. There is already experience here that can be built on, but it also shows what does not work.
After all, the task of training employees is ultimately the task of a manager: the manager, the foreman and the supervisor. This is why the training platform must also be organized on a private sector basis.
Because the Airbus small car will be built by the Europeans Renault, VW and Stellantis, not by the EU.
