European and American automakers have successively slowed down their pace of electrification. Is it because they don’t want to, or because they really can’t?

Which industry has the largest "traffic" in the past two years?

It is undoubtedly the new energy vehicle industry. Even a car accident can stay on the hot search for several days. Moreover, the hot topics in the new energy vehicle market are also changing back and forth like a revolving lantern. A popular saying during this period is: European and American car companies will not make electric cars anymore.

First of all, we need to make one thing clear: "European and American car companies don't make electric cars" is a rumor.

This rumor seems to be true. Its earliest source was that Mercedes-Benz announced in March 2024 that it would abandon its full electrification plan in 2023. This news was quickly interpreted as "Mercedes-Benz abandons electric vehicles" and spread widely.

In fact, Mercedes-Benz quickly refuted this rumor, but then Cadillac, Ford and other manufacturers also announced the delay of their electric vehicle plans and restarted the development of fuel engines, adding more "evidence" to this rumor.

The truth is that no traditional European or American manufacturer has said that they will "give up" electric vehicles. They have simply revised their previous plans and extended the time.

Why are there such changes in European and American car companies?

Common sense tells us that there are generally two main reasons why a large manufacturer delays or shelved its previously aggressive transformation plan. One is its own lack of strength, and the other is weak market demand. Traditional European and American automakers have both of these.

The problems faced by European and American automakers in the electric vehicle sector are caused by themselves. Many European and American automakers have a history of development of several decades or even hundreds of years. In the long-term development process, they have formed a complex interest group. If they want to switch to new energy vehicles, they need to start over with the research and development and production system that has been formed over the past decades, which is bound to hurt the interests of many people and cause internal conflicts in the company.

The most typical example in this regard is Volkswagen. Volkswagen’s former CEO Diess had several conflicts with the Volkswagen union because of his strong push for electrification transformation, and eventually resigned in disgrace. Volkswagen’s journey towards new energy is naturally full of twists and turns.

It can be said that traditional European and American manufacturers made a lot of money in the era of fuel vehicles, and there were no obvious problems with their products, technology, and reputation, so they did not have much motivation to develop new electric vehicles. The transformation to new energy is only because they are constrained by the strict emission policies of various governments. If the development of new energy is not smooth, these manufacturers will want to back off.

But from another perspective, since the transition to new energy has already begun, it is also possible if the product can be made well. New energy is not unprofitable, and in the long run, it can indeed bring users a better car experience. If they can persist in the transformation, European and American automakers may be like BYD, transforming from fuel vehicle manufacturers to new energy manufacturers, and then continue to lead the industry development.

Why don't European and American automakers do this when it's such a simple truth? Why do they want to slow down the transformation?

To use an old Chinese saying, it is not that we do not want to do it, but that we cannot do it. The development of new energy requires the mastery of core technologies, but European and American automakers have not mastered these core technologies so far. Even Volkswagen, which has been the most active in transformation, has not made much progress in terms of intelligence.

China is a weather vane of the global new energy market. Since 2023, several technical disputes have erupted in China's new energy market, involving high-pressure fuel tanks, AEB systems, intelligent driving, cruising range, super-fast charging, etc., but these debates are all dominated by domestic manufacturers, and joint venture manufacturers have been watching the whole process. This is enough to prove that European and American manufacturers have been left far behind by domestic new energy manufacturers in the field of new energy.

So far, China has occupied 60% of the global new energy market share and has absolute advantages in the fields of power batteries, smart cockpits, smart driving, smart chassis, etc. These huge advantages have formed a towering technological barrier.

More importantly, the automobile industry is a scale-based industry. After gaining an advantage, Chinese new energy manufacturers will use their huge sales volume to reduce costs, and then continue to conquer cities around the world and quickly occupy the global new energy market. Facing the powerful Chinese army, European and American new energy manufacturers actually don't have much to do.

If it is just because of their own lack of strength, there may still be hope for a comeback. As long as there is market demand, European and American manufacturers can make a comeback. But the problem is that the demand for electric vehicles in Europe and the United States is also shrinking, which may become the last straw that breaks the camel's back.

Starting from the second half of 2023, the demand for electric vehicles in Europe and the United States has been declining, and the growth rate has been getting lower and lower. Even Tesla can't bear it, not to mention those traditional manufacturers that can only sell a few electric vehicles a year.

Due to insufficient internal strength and unstable external demand, traditional European and American manufacturers have been facing setbacks everywhere. What’s even more exaggerated is that many European governments have also begun to backtrack and abandoned or delayed their previous carbon neutrality plans. As the pressure at the policy level gradually weakened, the motivation for transformation of European and American automakers has become even weaker.

Judging from the current situation, traditional European and American automakers have not given up on electric vehicles, but they simply do not have enough capacity to participate in the competition - this is actually more terrifying than giving up. Compared with death, being in a vegetative state is more despairing.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.