Fiat is smelling the coffee.
Fiat will reintroduce a petrol-engined 500 city car in the next two years due to a lack of demand for electric vehicles, particularly among older drivers, its CEO has said.
Olivier Francois confirmed the new petrol 500 Ibrida will arrive in early 2026 due to a ‘slower than anticipated uptake of EVs across Europe’ in an interview with Autocar.
However, he confirmed it will be the final version of the retro small car to have an internal combustion engine with the EU set to outlaw new petrol and diesel vehicle sales from 2035.
If they want to stay in business, they do what the consumer wants, not what the government wants. The deadline is unrealistic and the refusal of consumers to buy these ridiculous contraptions is putting the squeeze on the manufacturers. So, if they wish to survive into the future, they need to tell the various governments to do one and mean it. We have done our bit by refusing. The next step is theirs and it appears that the move is to reintroduce petrol engined vehicles.
Good.
TV ads for cars are exclusively for electrics. Presumably it will eventually dawn on them that they are wasting their money. If the EU did ban ICE cars and the makers and dealers just carried on selling them, I wonder how the ban would be enforced?
I have to confess to a degree of surprise at just how quickly and completely the milk float bubble has burst.
This was inevitable, but it is extremely gratifying to see it happening now.
I suspect a factory or two will have to close with the real world impact of mass redundancies though before real change occurs.
I think optimism is too strong a word at this juncture, but thete are more and more signs of reality reasserting itself.
I do hope the Donald is in the big chair from January.
And I do hope one of the first things he does is to meet the most grotesque pustule of seething inferiority and space warping stupidity in the history of sentient life
What was that you called me Idi?
I read today that Jaguar is moving to only selling a single model, which is an EV.
So long Jaguar.
Sad to see this decision. A classic marque, ruined by poor management.
It won’t just be a factory that goes, I suspect one or two car brands will be gone as well, big ones.
Ford are struggling. They’re trying to shift themselves upmarket and have shown they don’t understand their client base. They were the company of cheap but reliable and fun to drive cars. Now they’re bastardising their heritage with electric blame SUVs. That are Volkswagens. And cost the same as an Audi or BMW. Looking at their website, their line up is uninspiring and costs far too much. They’ll be relegated to commercial vehicles and US pickup sales.
Audi are struggling, sales tanking and have said they’re developing their last combustion engine. Worst performance in VW group.
Jaguar will fail as well, though they’re only small anyway. Could be saved by leeching off Land rover.
The question is, will the government listen as the industry starts collapsing and dealerships go under? Will they reverse course and admit they were wrong? Or will they double down and blame capitalism?
One thing is for certain. I’m not buying anything that doesn’t have an ICE as it’s main power source. Wouldn’t mind a hybrid. But I won’t be dictated to easily.
Car makers failing is part of the plan. Proles shouldn’t have mobility of any sort whether it’s social or vehicular.
I’m just old enough to remember life before car ownership became almost universal. Until I was eight years old, I lived in a little village in East Yorkshire. People just didn’t go anywhere, a bus trip into Hull on Saturday sometimes and that was it. We had one little shop and post office. Vans used to come around once a week, one for bread, one for meat, one for fish and so on. The local Methodists used to organise an annual coach trip to Bridlington, this was a major event that everyone looked forward to for months. It was a totally different world and one that I doubt that anyone would want to return to.
I wouldn’t buy an electric car, but I’m currently driving an electric company car.
It’s crap.
Nice to drive for a short distance, comfortable, lots of gadgets, but just no use for going places. It’s supposed to have a range of 240 miles, so I thought it would happily do the 160-mile round trip to the airport last month. Will it buggery. Accelerate, the battery dies. Put the air conditioning or radio on, the battery dies. I spent an hour recharging on the way back, at almost five times the cost per kWh that I pay if I charge at my house. My old Nissan would have done this trip three times on a single tank of diesel, and would refill in ten minutes if I needed to.
Avoid these things like the plague. They are shit.
A friend of mine got a VW ID something as a company car, as it saves him a bundle in car tax.
However, he now regrets it as it breaks down often and is not as practical as the ICE car he had before. On top of that, the cost of running it is a lot higher than originally planned (it turns out that unsubsidised electricity is expensive…who would have thought?), and accounting for the much higher purchase price, it makes savings to his company very moot.