By coincidence (yeah, right) Fiat UK – a tiny part of the Tavares-run Stellantis empire – felt moved to formally “react after the UK Government ruled out the reintroduction of grants to support the purchase of electric cars”. Furthermore, it repeated its allegation that Britain’s ruling politicians are guilty of “sleepwalking into an EV crisis”, prior to claiming the electric-car market for the UK’s private buyers “is in real jeopardy”.
But perhaps Fiat should rely less on UK Government subsidies to help bail it out, and focus more on resolving its in-house problems – including a model line-up that’s too small and priced too high, thanks to some modest Fiat 500s costing £30k-plus. No wonder sales are down in the first quarter of ’24 and Fiat’s slice of the UK market is less than one per cent.
Mazda UK also got in on the act, stating: “we need to change the narrative around EVs.” Additionally, it’s accusing the Government of “not incentivising EV adoption”. But, again, the question is: should incentives for foreign-built cars be funded by the UK state (using money general taxpayers paid to HM Treasury) or should car companies be paying for their own sales-incentivisation programmes? True, Mazda has just reduced the price of its MX-30 slightly to £27,995. But this is a pure EV with a claimed maximum range of only 124 miles – which is less than the quoted and frankly hopeless distance the original Nissan Leaf could achieve a decade and a half ago. If, as it says, Mazda really feels the need to change the narrative, it can do so by building EVs that go further, cost less and come with increasingly common seven-year warranties.
Do you agree with Mike? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section…
