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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/21/west-carmakers-retreat-electric-vehicle-risks-irrelevance-iran-war-evs-china>
"By the 1980s, Detroit’s once titanic carmakers were being upended by rivals
from Japan. Ford, General Motors and Chrysler had grown rich selling gas
guzzlers, but when oil prices rose and suddenly cheap, fuel-efficient Japanese
models looked attractive, they were unprepared. The collapse in sales led to
hundreds of thousands of job losses in the automotive heartland of the US.
Now western car manufacturers are making what one former boss calls a similar
“profound strategic mistake” as they pull back from electric vehicles (EVs) and
refocus on the combustion engine just as oil prices are soaring once again.
Experts say the industry’s future – and that of tens of millions of jobs –
could be on the line. This time, however, the threat is from China.
Cheap, well-made electric cars from brands such as BYD and Leapmotor are
finding buyers across Europe. BYD overtook Tesla as the world’s biggest EV
seller this year. Chinese marques are fast seizing the market share once
dominated by the likes of Volkswagen, Ford, Peugeot and Renault.
In the US, the pullback has been even more severe. Donald Trump has in effect
wiped out the country’s electrification push by cancelling tax credits for
consumers and dismantling exhaust emissions rules, which he calls a scam.
Andy Palmer, a former chief executive of Aston Martin, said: “The worst
possible response [from the Europeans] is to blink, slow investment and hope
the market somehow resets in their favour. It won’t.”
The Iran war makes the west’s EV retreat look even more shortsighted. Soaring
oil prices have already prompted fresh interest in electric cars after petrol
station prices surged across Europe. The German car dealer MeinAuto said
EV-related online traffic had jumped by 40% since the war broke out.
Palmer, who also developed the world’s first mass-market EV in the Nissan Leaf
and now chairs a battery technology firm, said: “Chinese carmakers have moved
early, built real capability in batteries and software, and are scaling fast.
If Europe hesitates now, it will hand rivals a structural advantage that
becomes harder and harder to reverse.”"
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
