How is Europe standing up in the transformation to electric vehicles?

Due to COVID-19, relevant and important questions have emerged as to how this will impact the electric vehicle deployment and associated market in Europe.

Due to this, Transport & Environment has issued a very interesting report on the topic, “Can electric cars beat the COVID crunch?”. The report gives some encouraging facts such as the increase of investments (60B€ invested in EU in 2019) in the electric vehicle and battery sectors. In fact, Europe has created a wide margin (3.5x) with respect to China. What is also interesting is that we see large activity among all OEMs in Europe (e.g. 40B€ from Volkswagen).

So, the production capacity is secured, but the question by some end customers is if the electric vehicles are affordable enough to be attractive. Over the years, the main focus has been on the battery costs, with the magic number of 100 $/kWh to give the breakthrough for electric vehicles. However, this is a one-dimensional view and there are several additional costs (and associated cost advantages) to consider. Today 57% of new cars are bought through a corporate channel. Having that said it is truly relevant to look at the total cost of ownership for leasing car an ICE car versus an electric car.

The results show that already today, electric vehicles are competitive in 50 % of the automotive market and in many key markets in Europe.