Good news, finally. The Brexit deal was met with a sigh of relief from the auto world. "A failure to reach an agreement would have been simply catastrophic," commented ACEA director general Eric-Mark Huitem. Certain, the devil can easily be in the details, given the size (250 pages) of the document, which in any case leaves open problems on customs duties, especially in components, a market between the two sides of the Channel worth 14 billion euros: in order not to pay, it will be necessary to demonstrate that at least 40% of the car is made in the EU or UK. But the agreement saves an exchange of three million cars, for 54 billion euros, and avoids the risk of a chaotic escape of the Japanese Honda, Toyota and Nissan, which alone account for about half of British production.
Once the uncertainty of Brexit has been overcome, however, the horizon of the car remains full of unknowns, both in the short term and in view of the coming revolutions: hydrogen, autonomous driving and, before that, the enormous efforts needed to support the advance of electric. A situation of continuous stress that made Automotive News, the voice of dealers and other protagonists of the four-wheeled world, write "We shouldn't be ashamed to say that we're coming off a horrible year" while the immediate recovery, in the USA as in Europe, will be linked to the incentives that governments will continue to distribute to the sector. It will not be easy, however, to recover the lost ground; in 2020 worldwide sales did not exceed 76 million pieces against the record of 94,3 million in 2017: a drop of 16%, more than double in Italy.
Volume braking is one of the phenomena four-wheeled groups have to deal with, especially in Europe. Luca De Meo, the former prodigy discovered by Sergio Marchionne, who landed six months ago at the helm of Renault from the Volkswagen group, has just published the rules of the "Renaulution", or rather the strategy to awaken the French group shaken by the vicissitudes of the Ghosn season . The first rule, wrote De Meo, will be not to pursue volumes at all costs. The rule that brought the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi triad to first place in the world for sales no longer applies, assuming that more volumes guaranteed better scale dimensions for the benefit of lower costs. In reverse, De Meo suggests the example of Carlos Tavares, the Portuguese who is about to drive Stellantis, the group that will bring together not only Peugeot and Opel but also Fiat Chrysler.
The success of Opel's restructuring is the result of cost cuts and the simplification of the various platforms, a path that Tavares will also take in Turin, after delegating full powers in Detroit to Mike Manley, the real goose that lays the golden eggs of the former Fiat Chrysler. Will this be enough to guarantee the take-off of what appears to be the fourth force of the global auto industry, with 400 employees, a turnover of 182 billion euros and a production of 8,7 million cars? It is undoubtedly one of the key questions of 2021. For the experts, Tavares will not be able to fulfill his promise to use all the former Fiat European plants without cuts to the workforce. But the bet is open: the Portuguese manager, who will bring patents on clean cars and consolidated experience in the electric sector to Fiat, is able to amaze, judging by his precedents.
Ma the real game of 2021 will be played on the car to come. But not only. The balances of the sector are no longer those that have been consolidated over decades. If you look at the ranking of the top 20 products in the world it must be noted that as many as six are Chinese: acronyms unknown until a few years ago (Byd, Nio, Saic, Xpeng, Li auto and Geely), three of which were born from the chip industry and not from mechanics. None of these companies existed a decade ago, today they boast a capitalization of more than $25 billion. Peanuts, if one thinks of the stock market value of Tesla (about 650 billion) which has not exceeded half a million sales in the last twelve months, well below the approximately ten million pieces of Volkwagen, Toyota and GM.
But none grows as fast as the behemoth of Elon Musk, giant of energy and innovation who has just launched the latest challenge: to put a Tesla up for sale within three years for less than $20, the most daring bet since Henry Ford. Nobody seems able to stop him. Maybe he will Apple returned to the field on the car front with combative intentions, which have already pushed the Apple stock up another 79 billion dollars (more than BMW's stock market value). Or perhaps the salamanders of Saxony: the German Land has forbidden the felling of trees that hinder the works for the Tesla plant which will be built near Berlin.
