Europe Automakers Launch Cheaper Electric Cars to Compete With China

"Several of Europe's biggest carmakers unveiled low-cost electric vehicles at the Paris Motor Show this week," reports CNBC. The automakers are "seeking to jump-start a demand slump and recapture some of the market share now held by Chinese brands.""It feels like Europe is fighting back," Julia Poliscanova, senior director for vehicles and e-mobility supply chains at the Transport & Environment campaign group, told CNBC at the Paris Motor Show. "There are so many new models on show, and what is really great is that there are a lot of launches that are more affordable. So, Citroen, Peugeot [and] Renault, they are all showing some smaller affordable models," Poliscanova said. "This is exactly what we need for the mass market, for people to buy those vehicles more, and this is also where the competition from the Chinese is also the hardest," she added... "The storytelling is that people have cooled off on EVs and there is no consumer demand, [but] this is really not true," Transport & Environment's Poliscanova said. "This year in Europe, we did not have affordable models, so people are not buying those overpriced premium vehicles. However, as soon as vehicles come in the right price range next year ... people will flock to buy them." Poliscanova said the launch of several low-cost EVs means electric car sales could account for up to a 24% market share next year, up from 14% this year. Chinese-made EVs typically cost less than half the prices seen in Europe and the U.S. last year, according to figures published by data firm JATO, underscoring the challenge for Western automakers to keep pace with Beijing... Pere Brugal, president and managing director of GM Europe, said that the challenges facing Europe's auto industry should be seen as a transitional phase - and not evidence of a crisis. "The adoption of new technologies and new behaviors is never a linear growth story, but the end is full-electric [vehicles]," Brugal told CNBC at the Paris Motor Show. Meanwhile, GM's CEO "says it will start making money on battery-powered models by the end of the year - becoming the only U.S. automaker aside from Tesla to achieve that feat," reports the New York Times (adding that sales are increasing "and the company just introduced a model that sells for less than $30,000 after a federal tax credit.") And GM "is still committed to doing away with combustion engine cars in the United States by 2035."

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