CIAC holds the ordinary general assembly and debate on electric vehicles

CIAC has held the ordinary general assembly to review the accounts, activities and discuss the management with the presence of more than 40 representatives of associated companies. All items were approved by majority or unanimously.

One of the highlights of the session was the debate held by the three speakers at the round table prior to the meeting, entitled "Is the industry ready for electrification?

The moderator was Carlos Solé, partner of the Strategy-Economics & Regulation area of KPMG. Regarding the speakers there have been:

• Pere Relats. President and CEO of Relats Group.
• Antoni Maria Grau. Director of Corporate Development of Circontrol.
• Joan Orús. CEO of QEV Technologies.

All the speakers have come to the same idea and that is that there is still a long way to go and the public administration must make a clear and decisive commitment to build the necessary infrastructures to welcome the arrival of the electric vehicle.

Pere Relats stressed that "the supercharger network is still very green in Spain and there are problem areas". He has also asked for charging to be "quick and simple as going to a gas station, as we do now" and more facilities to promote charging in parking lots of blocks of apartments. Finally, he mentioned that in China there are increases in demand of 35% or 40% and that the Next Generation European funds are a "great opportunity that we must take advantage of, therefore, we will have to learn to unite, take care of technology centers, seek synergies and increase the circular economy".

For his part, Antoni Maria Grau showed the differences in priorities between some governments of the European Union with data on recharging points, such as the fact that the Netherlands has more than 60,000 points, Germany has more than 40,000 and Spain has only a few thousand. The data provided by the Director of Corporate Development of Circontrol were also devastating regarding the electric vehicle market, "in Norway more than 80% of the vehicles are electric, in Germany they are around 20% and in the United Kingdom they are around 15%. In Spain, on the other hand, it is 6% and of this, only 2% is full electric when in the rest of the countries there is talk of 50%". To conclude, he has also opted for a change in the energy model and that each manufacturer will have its own electric battery factory.

Joan Orús also mentioned the differences between governments, giving as an example China's commitment to the electric vehicle, which is going to start a strong subsidy for the purchase, 50%, to reduce it progressively until it remains at 10%. Regarding the Next Generation funds, Orús remarked that "they must be used to create Spanish brands, so we must prevent them from going to multinationals. These funds must be received by SMEs to make the industry grow and prevent Spain from becoming a supplier of cheap labor".