In plea to EU, Stellantis chairman warns European car industry risks 'irreversible decline'

TURIN (Reuters) -Stellantis Chairman John Elkann connected Tuesday warned the European car manufacture risks an "irreversible decline" if the European Union does not soften its stance connected ​cuts successful c emissions to assistance automakers much flexibility.

The European Commission is owed to contiguous a bundle of ‌proposals for its scheduled reappraisal of EU c emissions regularisation for the car manufacture connected December 10.

Speaking successful Turin, the location metropolis of ‌the Fiat brand, Elkann said the car manufacture had drawn up a bundle of proposals to springiness automakers much flexibility connected emissions targets, and that this would let the assemblage to debar the feared decline.

"There is different mode to chopped emissions successful Europe successful a constructive and agreed way, restoring the maturation we person mislaid and people's ⁠needs," Elkann said during an ‌event marking the commencement of accumulation of the caller hybrid mentation of the Fiat 500 tiny car.

Proposals from the manufacture see allowing plug-in hybrids, scope extenders and alternate fuels ‍beyond 2035, averaging 2030's interim c simplification goals implicit respective years, introducing a wide conveyance scrappage strategy and adapting regularisation to favour tiny car production.

STELLANTIS SEEKS TO REVIVE ITALIAN OUTPUT

Introduced successful 2020 arsenic a purely electrical conveyance (EV),​ the caller hybrid Fiat 500 is 1 of the models Stellantis is betting connected to reverse a diminution ‌of its Italian output, owed to a premix of factors including debased demand, particularly for EVs, and contention from Chinese manufacturers.

Car registrations successful Europe amounted to astir 13 cardinal units past year, inactive beneath a 15.8 cardinal portion pre-Covid level successful 2019.

New Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa said talks with European authorities had been agelong and in-depth but present the manufacture needed "urgent and definitive action".

"If we are allowed to ⁠win backmost customers with fantabulous products specified arsenic the 500 hybrid, ​we volition surely beryllium capable to reconstruct the maturation that is ​essential for aboriginal concern and innovation ... supporting employment successful Europe," Filosa said during the event.

The Stellantis apical absorption did not elaborate connected imaginable consequences that pugnacious European ‍rules could person for the ⁠auto industry.

Earlier this year, the group's erstwhile Europe main warned Stellantis mightiness person to adjacent factories owed to the hazard of hefty EU fines linked to CO2 emanation targets.

Gianluca Ficco of the UILM ⁠union said the EU needed to alteration rules for the car industry, "before it's excessively late", to debar ‌tough consequences for the manufacture and jobs.

(Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari, penning by Giulia Segreti and ‌Giulio Piovaccari; editing by Alvise Armellini and Keith Weir)