Stellantis CEO Warns Global Recession Could Harm EV Adoption

Stellantis chief executive Carlos Tavares has warned that a recession could slow the growth of EV adoption, particularly if governments slash spending and incentives.

While speaking from Germany during a virtual roundtable event, Tavares said that central banks need to be cautious in their decision-making and indicated that increased costs of servicing debt due to higher interest rates could lead to government spending cuts at a time when consumers need as much support as possible to get into an EV.

“If you damage the capability of the middle classes to buy electrified cars because you support them less, because you don’t have so much money, because you need to take care of the budget deficit,” Tavares said, “because you cannot continue to increase the debt, because the servicing of the debts is very expensive, because of the increasing interest rates, you are increasing the gap.”