Lamborghini, Ferrari and Fiat To Continue With Petrol Engine Production.
While some see electric cars as the future, many car manufacturers who are moving quickly into electric vehicle production are not backing away from the internal combustion engine just yet.
Yes, they will continue to produce and develop a more efficient petrol engine and some others are asking their governments to allow them to sell their V8 and V12 super car petrol engine versions around the world.
So, where is the real call for better emissions? Where are all the promises of a complete electric only range in their showrooms? What happened to all the many promises to deliver electric vehicles only from a set date?
As the automotive industry continues to struggle to deliver electric vehicles at similar prices as their ONLY petrol powered siblings, they are realizing a simple fact. Electric vehicle production continues to be higher as the research and development costs are still high and EV battery prices are not moving downwards as fast as they want them to move.
Meanwhile, press releases and media statements from these auto giants continue to claim their push for a full EV range and they are pouring billions of dollars into battery research and production to bring EV battery costs down.
German car manufacturer BMW, Mercedes and even Porsche are still working on next generation petrol engines for some of the models. Even the Korean and Japanese car manufacturers have engineers working on more efficient and cleaner petrol engines.
Mazda is working to get Skyactiv engine technology even more efficient and Toyota engineers are innovating on leaner burning engines.
As recent as March 2021, BMW confirmed that they will forge ahead with developing petrol and surprisingly even diesel engines, CEO Oliver Zipse mentioned.
The BMW Group boss told media the German car maker had no plans to stop developing internal combustion engines, as it was confident customer demand will continue into the future.
Porsche CEO, Oliver Blume commented recently, ‘around 50 percent of all Porsche vehicles could be sold with an electric or hybrid drive by 2025. However, Porsche will always offer combustion engines, particularly in the 911. But we can’t stop the onward march of electromobility’.
Mercedes has made a strong commitment recently to stop development of petrol and diesel engines and to put all its research and development into electric cars only. However, the auto giant did not say that they will stop manufacturing and selling their current efficient petrol powered vehicles.
Peugeot and its parent, the PSA Groupe will reduce development of petrol engines and by 2023 will only sell electric vehicles.
Current petrol powered engines will remain in production for markets where electric vehicles will take time to be embraced (like Malaysia, Burma and Australia) but there will be no engine development.
However, electric car prices are projected to be competitive as soon as 2022 as battery costs start moving downwards.
The EV battery was once about 50 percent of the electric car’s cost, but could go as low as 20 percent by 2025. These reductions are certainly coming more quickly than the market expected.
Concerns about range are less of an issue for electric vehicles going forward. The technology is evolving, and more charging stations are popping up. “Range anxiety” (consumer fear that they’ll be stranded with nowhere to charge their battery) is still a very real issue OEMs still need to resolve.
A recent market survey by ACEA revealed that in the first quarter of 2021, hybrid electric vehicles made up 18.4 percent of total passenger car sales in the EU, almost doubling their market share in a year.
