Editorial of the “World”. French invention, German pride, the automobile is in the crosshairs of Brussels. On July 14, the European Commission presented its roadmap to revolutionize this more than century-old sector. As part of the Green Deal, vehicles with combustion engines will be banned from sale from 2035. This acceleration of more than five years in the calendar is unlikely to be contested politically, including in Germany, where the floods have tragically put the emphasis on the damage caused by climate change.
The Commission’s offensive is justified. If we admit the urgency, then we must seriously tackle the two main sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Europe: transport and electricity production (except in France, due to nuclear power) . Passenger cars are responsible for almost two-thirds of CO emissions2 of the transport sector.
The turn seems all the more logical as, with the electric car, the solution exists. Most manufacturers have already taken the lead. They will spend tens of billions of euros to do without the gasoline engine invented in 1886 by Carl Benz in ten years.
This revolution, however, will have a considerable impact on a large number of activities and on employment. Thanks to the sophistication and wide distribution of its products, the automotive industry is at the top of the industrial value chain. Its production and use require the support of myriads of companies of all sizes, both in mechanics and in services. In France, according to the Committee of automobile manufacturers, the sector employs more than 2 million people, from mechanics to steelmakers, including 200,000 in the automobile industry. Everyone will be affected – first and foremost those involved in the manufacture of the engines. We can already see it with the disappearances or restructuring of foundries and component manufacturers, such as the Poitou foundry.
The public authorities are minimizing the shock by promoting and subsidizing the installation of battery factories. But, unlike the heat engine, Europe is not ahead in this area. It even lags behind the Asians, led by the Chinese, who capture two-thirds of the market. Catching up at competitive cost will not be easy. In addition, replacement jobs, which will not be so plentiful, require other skills.
Emancipation symbol
The other challenge is societal. The car, symbol of the emancipation of the middle and working classes of the “glorious thirties”, will once again become an expensive product, with a cost nearly 10,000 euros higher than that of its thermal equivalent. The place of the automobile in society is called into question. Rejected by environmentalists for more than forty years, it is also an incomparable instrument of freedom, even essential for half of the French, who live in rural areas or in towns of less than 50,000 inhabitants.
The challenge of clean mobility therefore does not only concern manufacturers. For two centuries, the idea that technical progress is a source of emancipation has been the basis for the development of our societies. The automobile has played a large part in it. Its questioning upsets social balances. Only a broad social debate, accompanied by concrete solutions for those who cannot do without it, will make it possible to reconfigure the use of this good with strong symbolic value.