Electriccars no longer industry Cinderellas
VW scandal taints diesel outlook
WITH the future of diesel in question in the wake of Volkswagen’s (VW) emissions-cheating scandal, electric vehicles that have long struggled to find buyers in Europe are finally getting endorsed by major car makers.
At the Geneva International Motor Show this week, vehicle makers from mass-market PSA Peugeot Citroën to upscale Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz promised to challenge Tesla Motors with electric cars that have longer ranges and more affordable prices.
After largely sidelining the technology in recent years amid sluggish demand, the revived interest in battery- powered cars is necessary for car makers to meet tighter EU regulations for carbon-dioxide emissions starting in 2020.
The VW scandal gave other car makers a “push toward electric cars”, Karl-Thomas Neumann, the head of General Motors’ Opel unit, said. The German-based brand plans to roll out the Ampera-e next year. It is Opel’s first electricpowered car since the 2011 Ampera plug-in hybrid, which struggled to lure buyers because of its high price.
Diesel engines are typically 25 percent more efficient than petrol versions, making them critical to lowering carbondioxide emissions. But VW’s revelation in September that it had cheated on diesel lab tests for years increases scrutiny of the technology and threatens to blow a hole in plans to meet regulatory requirements. That makes once-eschewed battery cars unavoidable for the manufacturers. “You see a very nice trend about electric vehicles, so we are developing our own technology and we are happy with that,” Peugeot chief executive Carlos Tavares said.
The French company, which presented the Citroën E-Mehari electric off-road concept in Geneva, has been largely dependent on diesel technology. Its first electric cars – the Peugeot iOn and Citroën C-Zero – were rebadged versions of Mitsubishi’s i-MiEV.
VW, meanwhile, has made electric vehicles a linchpin of its plan for recovering from the crisis, accelerating a push to add 20 additional plug-in hybrid and battery-powered cars to its line-up by 2020. That includes the first battery-powered vehicle for the Porsche sports car brand, as well as an electric Audi crossover.
And it’s promising new leaps in technology, including ranges of more than 500km by the end of the decade.
“Charging will only take as long as a coffee break”, instead of hours, VW’s chief executive Matthias Mueller said in Geneva. “And in the long term, an electric car will cost less than a car with an internal combustion engine.”
Such technology advances will help electric cars eventually. But in the meantime, demand is tepid.