The medieval villages perched above France’s Côte d’Azur are an unlikely setting for one of Europe’s latest experiments in expanding the use of electric vehicles.
But a car-sharing scheme launched last year has become a hit with residents of their cobblestoned lanes, including some sceptical first-time users — the type of customers carmakers need to court as their EV sales stutter.
“People have a lot of misgivings at first. Then after five minutes that’s all forgotten,” said the programme’s local manager Clarisse Savorat on a recent afternoon in Fayence, where one of its cars was parked below a shady esplanade full of elderly pétanque players.
As Europe races to end the sale of petrol cars by 2035, heaping pressure on manufacturers as their investments in new technology spiral and stricter emissions rules loom, the road to mass-adoption of EVs remains riddled with obstacles.
Recent months have been especially torrid after several years of rising EV sales went into reverse, sparking profit warnings and job threats from the likes of Volkswagen and Peugeot-maker Stellantis.
EV sales in the year to September were down 6 per cent against a year earlier across the EU, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, with those in Germany slumping 28 per cent after the government scrapped purchasing subsidies at the end of 2023.
Consumers are flinching at high prices or flirting with cheaper alternatives from China that cost as little as half the average €40,000 price tag that had prevailed until recently.
But persistent image problems and customers’ wariness are also proving a problem — be it in France, with an EV market share of about 17 per cent of new car sales, or Spain and Italy, two of the big European laggards where it still hovering at 5 per cent or less.
Under-developed charging networks remain a deterrent, particularly in southern Europe, which lags far behind best-in-class nations such as the Netherlands. Even in France, with roughly four times the charging stations of Spain, confidence in the infrastructure is only growing slowly.
“There’s a difference between perception and reality. And communication around the sector has not been especially positive,” said Alexandre Marian of consultancy AlixPartners, adding that electric cars remained “stressful to understand” for those who had never used them.
But the EU’s ever more stringent stance on emissions means there is a pressing need to adapt to an EV future.
French bank Crédit Agricole, which launched the car-share programme on the southern coast, picked the spot because local leaders were concerned that rural enclaves such as theirs would one day get cut off.
Nice, a 40-minute drive from Fayence and the nearest hub for major hospitals or high schools, is one of a dozen big French cities to have brought in low-emission zones that will increasingly restrict access to more polluting cars — a tactic being deployed across the continent and in Britain. Bus services in the area, meanwhile, are sparse.
“People have cars to get around, and it means that tomorrow, with that car, I can’t go to the city any more,” said Jean-Yves Huet, mayor of the picturesque hilltop village of Montauroux.
For carmakers, expanding beyond the first generation of EV adopters — typically higher-income, youthful tech fans — will also be crucial. Even including petrol cars, manufacturers in Europe are expected to sell about 2mn fewer vehicles in 2024 than in 2019.
“In cities it’s becoming more and more difficult to use cars,” said Mikaël Le Mouëllic of consultancy BCG in Paris. “For the past 10 years, you’re also seeing more young people not even getting their licence, a trend that didn’t exist as much before.”
Olivier Rossinelli, the head of the Agilauto Partage scheme that Crédit Agricole wants to expand to between five and 10 locations in France next year, said the small-scale programme had had a big impact.
“It broke down a lot of psychological barriers,” he said. “With this project, we saw there could be real demand.”
A typical day for Savorat in Fayence includes helping users worried about how to locate charging stations, or telling them how the cable works for the small fleet of 15 cars and vans.
Some people are so used to the cars now they take them for regular short trips to Ikea or the rubbish dump, while a football club has booked out the fleet’s minivan on a repeat basis.
Whether this enthusiasm can convert into EV sales is another matter.
A heavily subsidised €100-a-month EV leasing scheme aimed at 50,000 low-income families across France and trumpeted by President Emmanuel Macron was oversubscribed in 2023, showing demand is there at a certain price.
The programme appears on track for renewal in 2025 but at a time of strained public finances and budget cuts, industry executives fear that purchasing subsidies may not last.
Marc Mortureux, chief executive of French car lobby group PFA, said incentivising more companies to add EVs to their business fleets was also an issue.
“There are still people who say ‘if you force me to go electric I’ll resign’,” Mortureux said.
Places like Fayence might even hold some adoption advantages over cities, where densely packed apartment blocks with layers of permissioning make complicate the installation of the necessary infrastructure.
Serge Billard, the 83-year-old head of a local pétanque club, has no need for a new car — he has three of varying ages — but were he to buy one, he would maybe go electric.
“It would cost less to charge at home, I have a garage,” Billard said.
Even fans of the cars have doubts about whether now is the right time to take the leap, or whether European manufacturers can meet their needs.
Florist Lucile Harmand uses the electric rentals to deliver bouquets to weddings, and her banker has come up with decent financing options for a battery-powered van to equip a second store she plans to open.
But Harmand is concerned about the hassle of recharging and battery life.
“There’s still a range issue — if I go to Nice to get stocks, come back, do three deliveries, that’s it, there’s no more juice,” she said.
“It’s all well and good, taxing Chinese cars,” Harmand added, referring to escalated EU tariffs on EV imports from China. “But Chinese cars, today — they have some 900 kilometres of range.”
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