During his interview in “L’Evénement” on France 2, Wednesday October 26, Emmanuel Macron declared from the outset that he wanted “preparing an ecological nation”culminating in the electric car. It is the weight of words, it remains to concretize this will expressed from the beginning of the interview. Regarding the objective of achieving the 100% electric car in 2035 as imposed by Brussels, the Head of State recognizes that France has fallen behind. He wants a third of the French car fleet to be electrified by 2027, that is to say the end of his five-year term.
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To achieve this, there is technology, the commercial aspect to win against the competition, and taxation. On the technological side, one immediately thinks of the components of electric batteries which require the use of rare metals. Hence the giant lithium mine that France must have, in the Massif Central, in 2027.”We don’t have oil in France but we have lithium”, reiterated the President of the Republic. This site presented as one of the largest European mines for extracting the precious metal is important. The Minister for Energy Transition, Agnès Panier-Runacher, spared no effort with our European partners to bring this project to fruition.
With the thermal car, Europe had an undisputed lead. By breaking this technological barrier in favor of the electric car without preparing for it, Brussels has left the field open to Beijing, which has taken the lead for the past ten years. For Europe, the slope is now difficult to climb. On the environmental level, then: the extraction of lithium requires the use of a very large quantity of water. Will we be able to find the technological answers in time? The Imerys company, which will operate the site in the Massif Central, claims to be actively working on the subject.
Tax remains. According to the Transport and Environment collective (which brings together some fifty European NGOs) quoted by the daily Le Parisien – Today in France, the differences in taxation between European countries work against us. As a proportion of electric cars in total car sales, France fell from fifth place in 2015 to thirteenth place this year.