The Renault Clio’s price has soared by 40 per cent over the past 15 years, largely due to EU regulation heaping safety and cleaner engine tech on car makers, says company boss Luca de Meo.
Inflationary pressures have hiked the prices of small Citroëns, Peugeots and Fiats too, so Stellantis boss John Elkann has teamed up with de Meo to campaign for the EU to relax its regulatory grasp. The pair claim the burden threatens Europe’s car manufacturing base and – ironically – slows down the take-up of cleaner tech because fewer consumers can afford them.
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Elkann believes there is an “incredible opportunity” to slash emissions “not by focusing on zero emissions for new cars, but how we take down the emissions of the 250 million cars circulating today in the European Union. That is not only good for the overall environment, it’s good for people who want to buy cars but [find them] too expensive, fundamentally driven by regulation.”
The Stellantis boss reckons the average age of Europe’s cars is more than 10-years-old, or 17 years in outlier Greece. If drivers of ageing cars with nastier tailpipe emissions could be persuaded to buy today’s mild hybrids, full hybrids or plug-in hybrids, carbon emissions would drop and local air quality would improve.
