In a letter to European stakeholders, Luca de Meo warns of China’s growing dominance in the EV sector, as evidenced by its overwhelming share of global sales. It highlights Europe’s growing dependence on China for key resources such as lithium and cobalt, while criticizing Europe’s response with onerous regulation. De Meo offers a number of recommendations, including promoting small affordable cars, developing autonomous vehicles, securing local supplies of raw materials, expanding charging infrastructure for electric vehicles and exploring the potential of hydrogen.

Don’t get too far behind China

In a letter to Europe, Luca de Meo, CEO of Renault and President of Acea, the Association of European Automobile Manufacturers, provides an in-depth analysis of the challenges and opportunities facing the European automotive industry. The letter comes in the context of China’s emergence as a global leader in the electric vehicle segment, a market supported by its huge domestic market. De Meo therefore begins his analysis by stressing Success China’s undeniable position in the field of electric mobility. At least 8.5 million EVs were sold in 2023, with China accounting for 60% of total global sales in this segment! This rapid growth highlights the need for Europe to review its strategies in order to remain competitive on the international stage.
Renault’s CEO also highlights Europe’s growing dependence on China for certain resources needed by the automotive industry, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt and electronic chips. This dependence, according to De Meo, emphasizes the importance of gstrategic management of relations with Chinawhile promoting the development of alternative sources of supply.

In a context where China and the United States are encouraging the emergence of electric vehicles, De Meo highlights the tendency of Europe to respond increasingly strict and complex rules. Such an approach, he says, has counterproductive consequences such as increased car weight and higher production costs. De Meo’s 20-page letter offers a series of recommendations for Europe aimed at increasing the innovation, competitiveness and sustainability of the European automotive industry.

De Meo’s recommendations

Luca de Meo speaks first promoting small affordable European cars. It proposes to create assistance for consumers to encourage the purchase of these vehicles, while encouraging cooperation between manufacturers to develop joint projects aimed at making these vehicles more accessible on the European market. It also highlights the importance of accelerating the development of autonomous and hyper-connected vehicles. He suggests investing more in research and development to stimulate innovation in this area, thus enabling Europe stay at the forefront of automotive technology and meet new consumer mobility needs. As for the sovereignty of the supply of basic raw materials, De Meo recommends developing local sources of supply and promoting recycling. This approach aims to reduce Europe’s dependence on imports of key inputs for the automotive industry, thereby strengthening the security and stability of the supply chain. To support the widespread adoption of electric vehicles, De Meo proposes to develop an infrastructure for charging electric vehicles and promote Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology. This approach aims to solve the problems of range and charging of electric vehicles, while promoting more efficient integration of electric vehicles into the energy grid.

De Meo also emphasizes the importance of promoting the emergence of a European champion of the industrial metauniverse, as well as the need unify processing batteries and also promote the development of the potential of hydrogen as an energy vector.