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Carlos Tavares has been criticising the switch to electric for years, and regularly calls it in interview "that technology that has been forced on us". He's bee

Carlos Tavares has been criticising the switch to electric for years, and regularly calls it in interview "that technology that has been forced on us". He's been spreading FUD on electric all over the French media for a while now. This discourse is the reason I'm not going to buy an electric Peugeot anytime soon even though I've always been satisfied with their ICE cars and the electric 208/308/408 are some of the best looking electric cars today IMO. But I can't buy an electric car if the CEO himself says he doesn't like electric and wouldn't have done it if he wasn't forced to.

olabyne 4y ago
Yeah, it is quite ironic that Tavares is a known EV skeptic, but the e-208 is a best-seller in Europe already ...
zemvpferreira 4y ago
One could also say he's in a very informed position to criticise the (mandatory in EU) switch to EVs from. Who's more of an expert on the subject than the CEO of a major auto group that sells a good portion of both combustion and EV automobiles? (I'm a PHEV proponent myself)
- Robotbeat 4y ago
  His group makes incredibly inefficient EVs. The Jeep Wrangler PHEV gets just 1.5 miles per kWh, compared 3.8 miles per kWh for the Tesla Model Y. Literally we'd need 2.5 times as much lithium to go all electric if we used his company's cars. The Wrangler PHEV is one of the few electric cars that is actually worse than an optimized gas-powered Prius in marginal emissions per electric mile driven (altho as we further decarbonize, this won't be true). Stellantis' electric technology, frankly, sucks. They give PHEVs a bad name (the Volt was awesome). And he has an incentive to not be forthright about it.
  - seszett 4y ago
    > The Jeep Wrangler PHEV gets just 1.5 miles per kWh, compared 3.8 miles per kWh for the Tesla Model Y. I don't know anything about Jeep, but the e308 is supposed to be at... 5 miles per kWh? If I'm correct at converting from 12.7 kwh/100 km.
    - Robotbeat 4y ago
      Doubt it, that’d be better than any other car. I think they’re using a very optimistic testing cycle, like the European one. The EPA’s testing cycle is much more conservative and closer to real world usage.
      - seszett 4y ago
        Well we're not going to get an American test for cars that don't get sold in the US, but Tesla says the EU standards figures are 18 kWh/100 km for the model S and 20 kWh/100 km for model X. Nothing about model Y, maybe it's not sold here, but these numbers are much higher than Peugeot's, on the same test. It's not unexpected since the 308 is smaller and much more recent than Tesla's models. You've seen that I'm already convinced that Peugeot (and Stellantis in general) is not going to be a good EV choice, but... the figures seem to show that they don't compare unfavorably to Tesla on the criterion you chose.
  - slaw 4y ago
    You compared an off-road vehicle with a crossover. Following your logic my bicycle gets 50 miles per kWh. So my technology is better than Tesla's.
    - edmundsauto 4y ago
      What % of a Jeeps miles do you think are off-road?
  - prottog 4y ago
    I have my own beef with Mopar products, but it's unfair to point out the Wrangler PHEV as a showcase of how bad the Stellantis electric technology is. The Wrangler is a niche product that will never be efficient, not even if it used unicorn farts as its propulsion source.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  He is in a very informed position about the fact that his company is garbage and that it has no chance on actually competing if these mandates happen, therefore he spreads FUD to prevent them. The idea that he has an incentive to provide real good information is crazy.

olabyne 4y ago

Yeah, it is quite ironic that Tavares is a known EV skeptic, but the e-208 is a best-seller in Europe already ...

zemvpferreira 4y ago

One could also say he's in a very informed position to criticise the (mandatory in EU) switch to EVs from. Who's more of an expert on the subject than the CEO of a major auto group that sells a good portion of both combustion and EV automobiles? (I'm a PHEV proponent myself)

Robotbeat 4y ago
His group makes incredibly inefficient EVs. The Jeep Wrangler PHEV gets just 1.5 miles per kWh, compared 3.8 miles per kWh for the Tesla Model Y. Literally we'd need 2.5 times as much lithium to go all electric if we used his company's cars. The Wrangler PHEV is one of the few electric cars that is actually worse than an optimized gas-powered Prius in marginal emissions per electric mile driven (altho as we further decarbonize, this won't be true). Stellantis' electric technology, frankly, sucks. They give PHEVs a bad name (the Volt was awesome). And he has an incentive to not be forthright about it.
- seszett 4y ago
  > The Jeep Wrangler PHEV gets just 1.5 miles per kWh, compared 3.8 miles per kWh for the Tesla Model Y. I don't know anything about Jeep, but the e308 is supposed to be at... 5 miles per kWh? If I'm correct at converting from 12.7 kwh/100 km.
  - Robotbeat 4y ago
    Doubt it, that’d be better than any other car. I think they’re using a very optimistic testing cycle, like the European one. The EPA’s testing cycle is much more conservative and closer to real world usage.
    - seszett 4y ago
      Well we're not going to get an American test for cars that don't get sold in the US, but Tesla says the EU standards figures are 18 kWh/100 km for the model S and 20 kWh/100 km for model X. Nothing about model Y, maybe it's not sold here, but these numbers are much higher than Peugeot's, on the same test. It's not unexpected since the 308 is smaller and much more recent than Tesla's models. You've seen that I'm already convinced that Peugeot (and Stellantis in general) is not going to be a good EV choice, but... the figures seem to show that they don't compare unfavorably to Tesla on the criterion you chose.
- slaw 4y ago
  You compared an off-road vehicle with a crossover. Following your logic my bicycle gets 50 miles per kWh. So my technology is better than Tesla's.
  - edmundsauto 4y ago
    What % of a Jeeps miles do you think are off-road?
- prottog 4y ago
  I have my own beef with Mopar products, but it's unfair to point out the Wrangler PHEV as a showcase of how bad the Stellantis electric technology is. The Wrangler is a niche product that will never be efficient, not even if it used unicorn farts as its propulsion source.
panick21_ 4y ago
He is in a very informed position about the fact that his company is garbage and that it has no chance on actually competing if these mandates happen, therefore he spreads FUD to prevent them. The idea that he has an incentive to provide real good information is crazy.