Europe Is Not Ready For The Electric Vehicle Revolution
More than half a century ago, President de Gaulle of France gave one of his famous press conferences where he addressed the post-war infatuation with the idea of a European Union. With his usual trenchant sense of humor, de Gaulle responded to a journalist that it is not enough to jump on your chair and scream “Europe! Europe! Europe!”. What he meant was that one had to think this common desire through. What kind of Europe do we want? How are we going to go about it?
De Gaulle imagined a “Europe des nations”, something akin to Switzerland’s confederation of cantons. Were he still alive, the French President would be appalled to see that France has now accepted a much more centralized European power run by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels. Today’s generation has long since forgotten his guidance based on a serious understanding of history and a very Gallic rejection of “Anglo-Saxon” capitalism.
But this is a topic for another article. The parallel we can see today is with the new infatuation with electric vehicles. European politicians have been at the forefront of the crusade to convert to EV’s. For a decade or so, they have been jumping on their chairs screaming “Electric cars! Electric cars! Electric cars!”. They have also passed draconian laws. The European Parliament has formally approved a law effectively banning sales of new petrol and diesel cars in the European Union from 2035.
With that in mind, I wanted to see how much more advanced Europeans are in their transition to CO2-free cars. On a recent visit to Brussels, I rented an EV Mini Cooper at the airport. It was the only EV car made available by Europe’s leading rental car company.
The first impression was great. The car is really fun to drive; its “zero to sixty” is every boy’s dream. I got another good surprise when I arrived at my hotel. The concierge told me he was going to charge the battery overnight. I did not have to worry about range anxiety. Distances between Belgian cities are very short and my battery would be recharged for me every night. “Pas mal!” I thought.
That’s where my infatuation ended. At dawn I found out the hotel had not been able to recharge the Mini Cooper EV. In Belgium, I learned, there are three different charging plugs. The hotel did not have the right one. But no worries! The concierge told me to just go down the street where I would find a public charger with all three different plugs.
Relieved, but a bit annoyed that this had not been taken care of when I was asleep, I drove my car to the public charger. It had the three plugs alright, but no cables. Apparently, EV owners carry cables in their cars at all times, but it did not occur to the rental company to supply one for its customer.
Investigating further, I was told that all Shell stations in Belgium have electric chargers with cables attached to them. I thus made my way through the city traffic to the nearest Shell station. Luckily no cars were charging; I wouldn’t have to wait in line. It would take only (!) half an hour to charge my car before I could finally drive to my destination. (Incidentally, a sign forbade charging for more than 30 minutes, even if one’s battery is not fully reloaded). OK, fine, 30 minutes should do it, I thought, and plugged in my car. Next I tried to figure out where to insert my credit card. Well, you guessed it. It is not that simple. The charger did not accept credit cards. One has to purchase a membership, which can be done online. It is pretty efficient, I am told. You should get your membership card in the mail within a few days!
Since I was in Brussels for only three days, I had no choice but find another charging station. By now traffic in the European capital was bumper to bumper. I Googled the next electric Shell station in the hope that it would accept my credit card. Long story short, I spent the next three hours driving around Europe’s capital vainly looking for a user-friendly charger. With just enough juice left, I drove my e-Mini Cooper back to the airport and exchanged it for a voracious luxury gas SUV.
International investing is more than looking at spreadsheets. It includes a lot of traveling and kicking tires. My short experience in Brussels, for example, makes it abundantly clear that Europe is not ready for EVs. A lot of catching up will need to take place if the Europeans want to achieve their ambitious goals. The investment implications need to be thought through carefully as some projections may turn out to be somewhat optimistic.