PSA Group CEO Carlos Tavares had some interesting thoughts to share about the possible impact of the European Union’s planned CO2 fines.
Companies that’ll miss the tougher CO2 reduction targets could be brought down to their knees, opening the road for a Chinese buyer to step in with its own EV technology, Tavares said according to Reuters.
Tavares, also the chairman of the European auto industry lobby group ACEA, added that the EU had failed to anticipate this outcome of the future 2020 CO2 goals.
Current antitrust laws make it easier
“The impact is very obvious. It’s going to create a Chinese Trojan Horse in Europe,” Tavares told French car magazine Le Journal de l’Auto. “If a European carmaker missed its (CO2) targets and was brought to its knees by fines, it could not be acquired by another big European carmaker purely because of antitrust rules.”
This would create an opportunity for a foreign investor to bring in the kind of technologies “imposed by European authorities, which means electric vehicles,” he said. “And who’s the leader in electrification? It’s the Chinese,” he added.
Tavares then went on and called for the EU CO2 fines to be suspended until local governments roll out adequate EV charging networks, a proposal that is planned to be submitted at the next ACEA meeting.