The documentary “Automobile, the end of an era?” is broadcast on Sunday June 4 at 8:55 p.m. on France 5. The film deciphers the turn taken by the European automobile industry in order to adapt to global warming.
“The car of tomorrow is a car which is small, which is accessible and which is shared, so everything has to be reoriented.” This is how the French ecologist MEP Karima Delli, member of the transport committee in the European Parliament, imagines the automobile in an ever closer future. A vehicle whose engine will now be all-electric and non-thermal to meet the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, drivers of global warming. A challenge for European manufacturers, forced to reinvent themselves in order to comply with the requirements of the European Parliament which voted, on February 14, a draft regulation prohibiting the sale of new cars with combustion engines from 2035.
An ecological turn based on the reports of the IPCC, the intergovernmental group of experts on the climate, and which requires de facto rethinking the car of tomorrow. The documentary Automotive, the end of an era?, directed by Thomas Lafarge and broadcast on Sunday June 4 at 8:55 p.m. on France 5, focuses on the merits of this electric revolution. He looks back on the history of the car, this means of transport that has become so popular, on the reasons for the delay of European manufacturers in the electrification of their vehicles, on the economic consequences of these changes and on the appearance of the models to come.
An object of desire turned guilty
It was at the beginning of the 20th century that the unbridled expansion of the automobile revolutionized the economy of the manufacturing countries and profoundly transformed societies. The good health of the automotive sector is becoming the symbol of the vigor of the French economy. An object of desire for consumers, the car reached its peak in the 1970s, until the first oil shock. Synonymous with freedom, it is becoming indispensable on a daily basis and is equipped with ever more cutting-edge technological advances.
From the 1990s, the tone began to change, says the documentary. Pollution, greenhouse gases, global warming… The automobile is called into question, guilty of proven pollution. Emission thresholds were set at European level in 1998, forcing the industry to change its strategy, but the efforts of the manufacturers proved to be insufficient with regard to climate change which is accelerating from year to year.
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“Coming back to people’s needs”
Therefore, the European Commission, alerted by the scientific community, is trying to convince the various players in the car fleet to make it ecological, with, among other things, the creation in 2019 of the Green Pact, also called “Green Deal”. But she comes up against fierce resistance and pressure from various lobbies, reluctant to make cars cleaner for fear of losing money. In 2022, European leaders and politicians are raising their voices and succeeding in convincing the most refractory to transform their vehicles and review their strategies, relates the documentary.
“You have to go back to the needs of people (…), which are not necessarily to have a huge car, but a small car that weighs much less,” argues in the film Diane Strauss, France director of the NGO Transport & Environment. A choice which, according to her, implies “go back to a logic of producing cars that are adapted to the needs of individuals and not just to marketing offers to make a profit”.
“Three hundred kilos lighter than the current car”
While Chinese and American manufacturers are in pole position in the field of electric cars, France is trying to catch up at a forced march. Helped by the State, French manufacturers compete in creativity to seduce consumers who are struggling to change their habits and who dream of ever bigger cars.
A choice that does not go in the direction of history, deplores Jacques Portalier, former engine engineer at Peugeot. He now works for an NGO that offers solutions for the energy transition. “For us, on average, the car should be 300 kilos lighter than the current car (…). It should have a moderately sized battery (…) be an aerodynamic car, so not an SUV, (. ..) and a reasonably equipped car”he lists.
But rethinking, even simplifying automobiles does not really find an echo among manufacturers, who manufacture new, ever larger models, such as SUVs. “Today, we still have a landscape that is taking shape, and which is a landscape of electric vehicles that will look like brothers to the thermal vehicles of yesteryear”, sI’m sorry Bernard Jullien, from the study and research firm on the automotive industry and services Feria. “And nothing, in this context, indicates that the automobile will be less present in the societies of tomorrow than it was in the societies of today.”
The documentary Automotive, the end of an era?directed by Thomas Lafarge, is broadcast on Sunday June 4 at 8:55 p.m. on France 5 and on france.tv.