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EU EV Monopoly Mandate Attempt Ignored Mass Market; There’s Still Time

A BYD Racco electric mini-car being launched into Japan's Kei car market. European carmakers will be hoping it won't appear in their home market any time soon. (Photo by Zhang Xiaoming/VCG via Getty Images)

VCG via Getty Images

If only the European Union could have read the final chapter first, it might have realized its aim to force a new electric vehicle monopoly on its unwilling citizens required small EVs to excite buyers.

Meanwhile, its tough targets for sales of EVs look destined to fall well short of the mandate that all new sedans and SUVs purchased in 2035 shall be all-electric. That 100% is under pressure and the industry and auto-making states have achieved a provisional 10 percentage point relief.

The current acceleration in European EV sales - in the first half of 2026 EV sales rose about 40% to 1,220,890 (ACEA) compared with the same period last year - masks the overriding failure. Unfortunately, that brought market share to only 20.7%.

Under the European Union’s zero carbon dioxide emissions target for autos in 2035, the next big hurdle requires an EV market share of around 60% by 2030. This target looks impossible in the time available as current forecasts center around 40%.

According to investment researcher Jefferies, European EV sales in 2030 will reach 5.8 million or 42% of the market. Jefferies expects sales of 2.9 million this year (22%) and 8.9 million in 2035 for 65%, when it should be 100%, according to current EU rules.

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A mass market in EVs needs to be created. Analysts reckon an unpretentious little utility electric vehicle with a range of say 100 miles, a top speed of 60 mph, room for two adults and two children, priced from say €10,000 ($11,400), would do for EVs what the Nokia 3210 did for mobile phones. That would trigger a stampede for EVs, with not a subsidy or tax break in sight. So far there’s no sign of that, and time is running out, although to its credit the EU, with its Industrial Accelerator Act, wants urgent action to save local automakers from succumbing to ballooning Chinese sales.

Too large, too heavy, too pricey

Current EVs are still too large, too heavy and too pricey for the mass market. The EU wants to turn this around and create a market for small, genuinely affordable EVs. Average EV prices of around €45,000 ($51,300) are now on the way down, with many falling towards €20,000 ($22,800), and the likes of the Leapmotor TO3 and Renault’s Dacia Spring testing €15,000 ($17,100). These new mass-market EVs would be like Japanese Kei cars. Strictly short range but affordable, particularly if acquired through a lease.

If only the EV industry had reinvented the cheap and cheerful car. Remember the old internal combustion engine entry-level era when small cars like the Fiat 500, Ford Ka, Citroen C1, Peugeot 108 and Renault Twingo were seriously affordable and ubiquitous? As part of its plan to force people into EVs, the EU tightened emissions rules for ICE cars and effectively banished them.

Multi-brand giant Stellantis’s chairman John Elkann and former Renault CEO Luca de Meo had urged the European Union to sponsor a new class of small cars, modelled on Kei cars, small but built to strong safety standards. Volkswagen has joined the movement, which also wants a “Made in Europe” provision to reward manufacturers that localize production. The EU has proposed a 70% local-content threshold excluding batteries.

Industrial Accelerator Act

The EU has taken up this plan with its Industrial Accelerator Act proposals for a new E-Car category, less than 4.2 metres (13 feet 10 inches) long, and eligible for so-called super credits, giving them a higher CO2 emissions reduction benefit to help reduce fleet emissions and avoid fines. IAA, among other things, wants to re-establish Europe’s competitive edge.

Alexander Klose-Mozer, CEO of EuroEV and Managing Director of KM Electron, has been critical of European manufacturers’ lackadaisical approach to cheaper EVs.

“Europe can certainly build electric cars. The bigger challenge is building seriously affordable ones. Let me make it clear; I don’t think it is possible at present. Today, batteries remain the largest cost component, and this is where Europe is at its weakest compared with China,” Munich-based Klose-Mozer said in an email exchange.

“Beyond batteries, I think Europe has gradually lost some of its ability to engineer cost out of a vehicle. Our development processes have evolved around mature products, high-quality standards and established organizations. That produces excellent cars, but not always the lowest-cost solution.”

China speed

“There is also a speed issue. European manufacturers tend to optimize, validate and refine. Chinese companies have often been willing to build, learn and iterate much faster. Could Europe still do it? Absolutely. But I suspect it would require a different approach - perhaps a largely independent organization, with the freedom to rethink the product, the processes and the business model from scratch.”

“The real question is therefore not whether Europe has the engineering capability. It does. The question is whether it is willing to build the kind of organization needed to create a genuinely affordable EV,” Klose-Mozer said.

Dr Chris Vas, Associate Professor at the University of Canterbury in southern England, said the EU wants to persuade its manufacturers to go cheaper, the lowest price is more like €15,000 than €10,000.

“The more important question, however, is not whether Europe can produce a €15,000 EV. It is whether Europe can become the preferred location for the next generation of automotive supply chains. Small affordable EVs should not simply become another market segment. They are potentially the mechanism through which Europe generates the production scale needed to accelerate EV adoption, strengthen supplier ecosystems, improve battery learning curves and drive further cost reductions. That is why delays have ramifications well beyond consumer choice,” Vas said in an email exchange.

Vas said Europe needs to localize high-value components, particularly batteries and power electronics.

Make Europe the rational location

“The objective should not simply be to keep Chinese manufacturers out, but to create the conditions that make Europe the rational location for localization. If Europe can combine cost competitiveness, technical capability, engineering excellence and efficient logistics, then Chinese and other global manufacturers have commercial incentives to localize engineering, component manufacturing and supplier networks in Europe,” according to Vas.

“Ultimately, Europe’s risk is not being overtaken because China is faster. As we have argued, it is being overtaken because China is executing consistently while Europe continues to renegotiate the destination. The challenge is therefore not simply to move faster, but to provide the strategic certainty that allows industry to invest confidently over decades rather than electoral cycles,” Vas said.

Professor Enzo Baglieri, Professor of Operations and Technology Management at Italy’s SDA Bocconi School of Management, agreed that electric vehicles were much better suited to urban mobility than long journeys.

EU must have known its rules posed an existential threat

“We currently rely on the same vehicle for these two very different mobility needs. This is where EVs can create a new market segment—one where design innovation is still lacking and where business models need to evolve,” Baglieri said.

The IAA is not expected to become law until well into 2027. If European automakers fail to make the 2030 EV market share targets they face massive fines, but more likely the rules will be watered down. Manufacturers will be wondering how the EU could have approved such regulations, when it must have known its own industry was hopelessly behind and would face an existential crisis.