‘It’s stupid’: why western carmakers’ retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance | Automotive industry

3 comments

1. >Andy Palmer, a former chief executive of Aston Martin, said: “The worst possible response [from the Europeans] is to blink, slow investment and hope the market somehow resets in their favour. It won’t.”

   >The Iran war makes the west’s EV retreat look even more shortsighted. Soaring oil prices have already prompted fresh interest in electric cars after [petrol station prices surged](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/mar/14/m1-drivers-fuel-prices-us-israel-iran) across Europe. The German car dealer MeinAuto said EV-related online traffic had jumped by 40% since the war broke out.

   >Palmer, who also developed the world’s first mass-market EV in the Nissan Leaf and now chairs a battery technology firm, said: “Chinese carmakers have moved early, built real capability in batteries and software, and are scaling fast. If Europe hesitates now, it will hand rivals a structural advantage that becomes harder and harder to reverse.”

2. Europe should just outsource all manufacturing to China 🇨🇳 it will be best for Europe future stability.

3. Where is exactly the EV retreat ?