Mercedes Is Fear Mongering On EV Policies Again

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Legacy automakers just can’t help themselves it seems. If one of them isn’t acting out, it’s another’s turn, and progress is always too much, too fast, and too scary.

The news this time is that Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Kallenius has decided to altruistically warn the European Union that overhauling auto emissions, as has been proposed, could destabilize the EU’s auto market. Agh!! He wants the policymakers in charge to water things down in order to not effectively ban new gas and diesel vehicle sales in the market by 2035.

This happens every stage of the way from what I’ve seen. Automakers love to claim that they can’t innovate as fast as regulators and the public want them to innovate, and beg and cry and complain and protest that they need to be allowed to evolve more slowly.

With regard to EVs, it looked like they were going to get away with their foot dragging and were going to get regulations watered down about a decade ago before Tesla showed there was massive consumer demand for good mass-market electric cars. German automakers, as well as others in Europe, had been putting a lot of pressure on German political leaders who had the most influence on the EU. But when people waited in lines for hours in the early morning all around the world to put down reservations for the Tesla Model 3, the whole idea that consumers just didn’t want EVs was completely sunk and the lobbying didn’t work.

Now, however, Tesla sales are down, down, down (for various reasons), and Chinese EV makers who could be putting a lot of pressure on the industry in Europe are being handicapped by high tariffs. So, perhaps legacy auto company CEOs who want to drag their polluting ICE feet see it as a time to try to slow down the EV transition again.

In any case, the idea that the auto industry can’t handle a shift to 100% EVs in about a decade is ridiculous. And one need not look even very far to prove that, as we can all see that Norway is now effectively there. So why can’t the EU get there a decade later? I really can’t take Mr. Kallenius seriously after making claims like this and lobbying for an EV slowdown as if it’s 2010 rather than 2026.