In 1914 Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary, commented to a friend as Britain was about to enter the First World War that “The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime”.
He was being metaphorical but now, little over a century later, that prediction is coming to pass for real. We are indeed poised to see Europe plunged into blackouts, sacrificed on the altar of inadequate new technology for the sake of a fantasy of imminent Armageddon. That is going hand-in-hand with the prospect of cars stopping all over Europe.
Matthew Lynn in the Telegraph is convinced that the UK and Europe’s EV nightmare is only just beginning:
President Trump is determined to go back to something that until recently would have been considered completely normal: a free market in cars. Under President Biden, a tax credit – in effect a subsidy – of up to $7,500 was awarded for every EV sold. And environmental rules were blamed for effectively forcing auto makers to make a larger proportion of their new vehicles electric.
Instead of simply making the cars that people wanted at prices they could afford – something that the pioneers of the American industry such as Henry Ford were once very good at – the industry was distorted by a mixture of subsidies and standards that had more in common with Soviet planning than free market capitalism.
With all that ditched, Ford and GM can get back to serving their customers, with a mix of petrol autos for long journeys, EVs for city runarounds and hybrids for everything in between. It is likely to be a very successful mix, and one that will enable them to push back against the looming wave of Chinese imports, especially if those cars face tariffs.
It will, however, pose a huge challenge to countries that choose to persist with EV mandates – the UK and the EU bloc chief among them. While America frees itself from a rushed transition to electric vehicles that has proved poorly planned, and badly executed, London and Brussels will continue to tie themselves to a technology that is far from fool-proof.
Lynn foresees only more expensive cars for private motorists and costlier vans for companies. Worse:
This has the makings of an industrial tragedy. Autos were one of the few industries where Europe had a clear lead. After all, no one ever lusted after a Chrysler or a Chevrolet, or even a Cadillac or a Lincoln, in the same way they did over a Mercedes, a BMW or a Land Rover, or, at least until recently, a Jaguar. The European companies were bigger, and often better, and the US accounted for 20 per cent of their exports.
As the US auto industry now looks forward to liberation, UK and European manufacturers are about to be “crushed”.
Worth reading in full.
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