Main points (to make up for the clickbaity title):
Challenge to bring down European EV manufacturing costs
Lower costs to close price gap with China EVs
China EV sales account for 8% of European total through July
Renault’s R5 EV to be 25%-30% cheaper than Scenic/Megane
MUNICH, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Europe’s carmakers have a fight on their hands to produce lower-cost electric vehicles (EVs) and erase China’s lead in developing cheaper, more consumer-friendly models, executives said at Munich’s IAA mobility show.
“We have to close the gap on costs with some Chinese players that started on EVs a generation earlier,” Renault (RENA.PA) CEO Luca de Meo told Reuters at the car show, adding when manufacturing costs decline, prices will also go down.
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Yeah, it was both. The european brands avoided electric cars for a long time, while the chinese pushed hard for them. And because electric motors and car batteries were a new technology, this was a great opportunity for the chinese to pull ahead(everyone started from 0).
And the chinese also used their cooperations and acquisitions(Volvo is owned by the chinese brand Geely), in order to improve the conventional car making part production(everything other than the electric engine and batteries). Tesla followed a similar arc. Their motors/batteries are great, the other parts started as bad but they are improving all the time.