As we reported last week, the latest Brexit arm-wrestle is well underway and France has emerged as the stubborn nation digging its heels in to prevent progress.
New post-Brexit trade rules designed to make sure that EU-produced electric cars use locally made batteries could actually end up costing the industry as much as £3.75bn as production of batteries hasn’t ramped up as it should.
As a result, car makers from both the EU and UK will face a 10% tariff if less than 45% of the cars are made locally – a tariff that they requested was put in place for cars transported across the Channel in either direction.
And now, despite requests from both UK and EU firms, the French government does not want to delay the levy simply to not give the appearance that it’s giving in to U.K. requests – how mature.
In what seems to be a nonsensical block, the French government will end up costing Renault money - which is partly owned by the French state – as well as Stellantis, the parent company of Citroen and Peugeot.
The majority of the EU’s 27 member states – led by Germany – want to delay the deadline as do European manufacturers who want to postpone the phase in period by three years.
If the deadline isn’t extended, there are fears the European cars will be priced significantly higher than the Chinese competition.
Smart move? No. Surprising? No.
