The US carmaker Ford has announced it will stop selling cars in the UK and Europe with any form of internal combustion engine by 2030. Ford is committed to ensure that all passenger vehicles produced and sold in the UK and Europe will either be all electric or plug-in hybrid with zero-emissions capabilities, after 2030 only pure electric models will be made. Ford is investing $22B in electric technology by 2025 globally, the announcement makes the Ford group the largest carmaker so far to pledge all-electric sales by 2030 in the European region. This sum is around double its EV-specific allocation for the past five years. Ford’s Europe largest central facility in Cologne, Germany, will be one of the first to receive a share of the funding. The investment will be used to change existing assembly lines to produce a fully electric passenger vehicle and train their staff accordingly. In 2023 the new model will begin production at the plant then Ford will explore the potential to add a second model in the longer-term. Ford has also set aside funding to create and operate a new collaborative unit with Google, called Team Upshift, the carmaker says the unit will “drive disruptive, data-driven opportunities”, but further details remain scarce at present.
The Fords European President Stuart Rowley has said: “We expect the majority of the vehicles will already be battery electric by 2026. All of the manufacturer’s engine sites across Europe will be part of the transition to electric.” Stuart Rowley did not give any clues if Ford would make its own batteries in current plants or continue to buy them in from suppliers. He also declined to say when Ford would stop importing its classic muscle car the Mustang into Europe, but he did say “The model was included in its pledgee to phase out sales of car engines by 2030.” Ford will begin deliveries of the Mustang Mach-E battery car in the region later this quarter, will build its first European battery model in Cologne in Germany from 2023, using electric car technology from Volkswagen. Volkswagen and Ford have global alliance to reduce costs by sharing some technology on electric and autonomous system.
Ford-Werke’s Chairman of the general works council Martin Henning said: “The decision to make the production and development site in Cologne the e-mobility centre for Ford in Europe is an important signal to the entire workforce.” “It offers a long term perspective for our employees and at the same time encourages them to help shape this electric future.”
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has also announced their new business strategy by a commitment to stop producing petrol and diesel vehicles under its Jaguar brand by 2025 and make the switch to electric-only models. Jaguar only makes one pure-electric model at present and outsources its production. New plans for Land Rover will see the brand stop producing ICE vehicles for sale in the UK by 2030, Global production will then stop by 2036. Land Rover will also launch six new pure electric cars in the next five years.
BMW also revealed its new climate plan in the Summer of 2020, it has committed to cut emissions from vehicle use by one-third by the end of the decade. BMW is aiming to have more than 1 million EV’s on the roads by 2030, with two-thirds of them being pure-electric. It will launch five pure-electric vehicles by the end of 2021 and additional models in the coming years, resulting of 25 EV models by the end of 2023.
Daimler announced in 2018 their plans to purchase more than 18 billion worth of EV (electric vehicles) battery cells by 2030. They are aiming to have 130 pure electric and hybrid vehicles on offer by the end of 2022. At least 10 of these models will be Mercedes-Benz, Daimler expects electrified models to account for 15-25% of the brands annual sales in 2025.
Ferrari debuted its first hybrid in 2013, they are now launching in late 2021 their new hybrid SF90 Stradale. The current boss Louis Camilleri said: “The brand would not commit to full electrification within his lifetime.”
General Motors (GM) made a commitment to become carbon neutral in operations and products by 2040. GM owns Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC and Wuling. GM will offer 30 all-electric models globally by 2030,they also have forecasted that EV’s will account for 40% of market entries in its largest market-the-US by the end of 2025.
Groupe Renault owns Dacia, Alpine, LADA and MOBILIZE, they are committed to be carbon-neutrality in Europe by 2050. Under their plan the business will offer an electrified version of all models by 2022. Groupe Renault is also involved in collaboration agreements with Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors both agreements have projects related to EV’s.
Hyundai carmaker owns Kia and in 2019 they had three EV models for sale, by 2025 they will be offering 16 pure electric and hybrid cars to sell. They will also invest $6.7B by 2030 to achieve this vision.
Honda is planning to only sell pure electric vehicles and hybrids in Europe from 2022, they originally had a 2025 deadline to do this.
Nissan owns several brands in Asia, they are aiming to launch eight new pure EV’s by 2023. Nissan expects to sell one million pure EV’s and hybrids every year from 2024, with their key markets being Japan, China and Europe.
Stellantis owns Fiat Chrysler and Groupe PSA (Peugeot Citroen) signed a joint agreement in January and said the aim of the merger is to “create a leader in sustainability mobility”. The whole company offers a total of 29 hybrid and pure electric models at present and they will be planning an outline a roadmap to carbon neutrality in the coming months. Fiat Chrysler and Groupe PSA had told the UK Government that switching to fully electric portfolios by 2030 would be challenging without additional support.
Suzuki doesn’t at current offer any electric vehicles and there is no plan at current to start selling electric vehicles. They do sell hybrid vehicles and it recently updated its hybrid Swift and Ignis models.
Tesla only produces pure electric vehicles and the Co-Founder Martin Eberhard argued in 2006 that hybrids are “no more electric than a 1942 Jeep” and has maintained that stance.
Toyota unveiled a series of ambitions new environmental targets in 2015 they will eliminate the use of gasoline cars and try to cut average carbon emissions from all of its vehicles and products by more than 90% by 2050. Toyota subsidiaries include Lexus, Daihatsu and Subaru.
Volkswagen Group owns Audi, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Seat and Skoda. Volkswagen is planning to manufacture one million electric cars by the end of 2023, it will then scale up their production to at least 1.5 million electric cars annually in 2025.
Audi business plans to include a commitment to sell 20 pure EV models and at least 10 hybrid models globally by 2025.
Bugatti is planning to debut its first ever EV this year.
Bentley has already committed to stop selling petrol cars in 2026, they plan to become carbon neutral by 2030 and carbon negative thereafter.
Volvo has not launched any new petrol or pure diesel car models since 2019, their new and first pure electric model the XC40 Recharge was due to launch last year. Volvo has an ambition to get one million electric cars on the road by 2025.
Europe is now the leading market for electric vehicles, overtaking China in 2020 as the worlds largest plug-in car market, with the sales expected to rise further due to EV Emissions rules being tightened over the next decade. One in 10 cars sold last year across Europe and the US were electric or plug-in hybrid, as carmakers ramped up sales to meet 2020 CO2 targets. The UK has already pledged to phase out all sales of cars using only petrol or diesel by 2030, with a ban on the sale of any vehicles with tailpipe emissions by 2035.
