In EV market, fresh product and fresh doubts

GENEVA — Electric vehicles dominated the stands and conversations at the start of the Geneva auto show as more manufacturers showed their hands on EV strategy.

But despite the push to make the still-expensive technology more accessible, do consumers want it?

That question has billions of dollars in investment riding on it.

"2019 will be a decisive year for electromobility," Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess declared at a private event on the eve of the show, citing the VW brand's planned unveiling this year of its first "mass production" electric car, the I.D. compact.

Audi revealed a concept previewing its Q4 e-tron electric car on the same MEB platform, due in 2020. Two of VW's European brands, Seat and Skoda, also showed MEB-based EVs and are key to the economies of scale VW needs to make electric cars off the platform affordable.

Also revealed ahead of their launch this year were Honda's e Prototype minicar, the Europe-only Peugeot e-208 subcompact and the Polestar 2, a midsize rival to the Tesla Model 3 from Volvo's new electric brand.

But Tesla's persistent financial difficulties and the news that its most promising Chinese rival, Nio, is suffering from poor sales in its home market should raise warning flags, said Max Warburton, an analyst at AllianceBernstein.

"All the signs are we've got a massive demand problem," he told Automotive News. "We've got this groupthink that says everyone wants electric, but where are the customers?"

In Europe and China, automakers have no choice but to electrify in response to ever-tightening regulations. The U.S. and Europe were running at about 200,000 units apiece of full-electric vehicles last year, but by 2022 Europe's sales will be double those of the U.S. at around 1.2 million, LMC Automotive predicts.

This makes Europe more appealing than the U.S. to ambitious Chinese electric brands such as BAIC, the largest maker of battery EVs in China last year. "In terms of promoting pure electric vehicles, we don't believe [the U.S. is] a very mature market compared to Europe," BAIC Chairman Xu Heyi told reporters at the show, where the company unveiled its full-electric Arcfox lineup ahead of a European introduction. "It might be a plan in the future but not at the moment," he said.

Not as prominent but more plentiful at Geneva were plug-in hybrids, including two for Jeep — Renegade and Compass — and five for Audi, including the Q5 crossover. BMW in particular was bullish on the six new plug-in hybrids it unveiled at the show, five of which it intends to sell in the U.S. next year, including the 3-series sedan and the X3 and X5 crossovers.

BMW is waiting for new engines that will qualify as super-ultra-low-emissions vehicles, and thus gain access to California's high-occupancy vehicle freeway lanes. A BMW spokesman said, "PHEV will play a fundamental role for us in the next few years."