While its sales jumped in 2023 thanks to the ecological bonus, Tesla’s Model Y could still benefit from the public subsidy: the criterion used will be that of the carbon footprint of the battery and not that of local production. Explanation.
Protect French industry or protect the planet? Yesterday Emmanuel Macron announced the implementation of a new ecological bonus which will no longer concern all electric vehicles. If some qualify this measure as protectionist, the Head of State denies it and talks to him about carbon footprint.
It will no longer be enough for vehicles to emit no greenhouse gases to benefit from the bonus, but from one end of the production chain to the other, it will have to respect strict environmental criteria.
What good after all buy a clean car in France if it was manufactured in a factory powered by coal?
A laudable initiative but which risks complicating the system. Today it is very simple. You benefit from aid of 5,000 euros without income conditions (7,000 euros for the less well-off) for the purchase of any new electric vehicle under 47,000 euros and under 2.4 tonnes. With the new formula that will be unveiled in the future “green industry” bill, this will no longer be automatic.
A “patriotic bonus”?
But from the ecological bonus to the “patriotic bonus” there is only a very small step. And it was Tesla who, among other things, pushed the executive to review his device.
At the start of the year, the American manufacturer drastically lowered the prices of its models, in particular that of the Model Y, the mini-SUV, which fell to just under the bar of 47,000 euros (45,990 euros precisely to date). He can therefore benefit from the reduction financed by the State of 5,000 euros.
Result: sales of the American vehicle jumped in April by 1800% over one year. Since the beginning of the year, 10,700 Model Ys have been sold by the American. Thousands of French buyers are canceling their Renault or Peugeot orders to jump on the Tesla.
We therefore find ourselves in a situation where we subsidize with public money high-end vehicles which are moreover manufactured in China (which is the case of the entry-level Model Y, even if part of the production of the entry-level “Propulsion” version has now been provided by the Berlin factory for a few weeks). 40% of the bonuses paid are currently for “made in China” models.
But which electric vehicles will be able to benefit from the bonus in the future?
The Head of State said he wanted to give priority to production in Europe, considered a priori more virtuous. Except that on the side of Bercy which is working on the future bonus, we assure that there will be no local production criteria. In other words: if you produce your car “properly” in China or Canada, you can benefit from the bonus. If you produce “dirty” in France or Germany, you will not benefit.
The Dacia Spring may no longer have bonuses
“We are in the process of defining the criteria, technical work is in progress, it is indicated on the side of the Ministry of the Economy. The assessment of the environmental impact will be done on the battery, the steel which makes up the vehicle as well as the integration of recycled materials.”
If the standards in this area are less restrictive in China than in Europe, one can think that in fact the vehicles manufactured there will be disadvantaged. But what about Tesla vehicles manufactured in the United States and sold in Europe (Model S and Model X) or in Germany, as is the case with some of the Model Ys?
Admittedly, the Model Y versions produced in Germany were so far the most expensive (Great Autonomy and Performance) at more than 50,000 euros, therefore not eligible for the bonus. But with an acceleration of production and effects of scale, the American manufacturer has demonstrated in the past that it was able to compress its costs and therefore its prices. What to benefit from the bonus again…
The other paradox is that the most popular electric vehicle, that of the less well-off classes, is certainly French… but produced in China. This is the Dacia Spring, offered today from 20,800 euros (excluding bonuses). It’s a safe bet that it does not meet the carbon footprint criteria that will be unveiled in the coming weeks by the government.
As always with the environmental question, virtuous products are the most expensive and therefore inaccessible for the less well-off households.
