EV transition worries French car industry workers

Vouziers, France: As France faces a 2035 deadline to phase out new combustion engine cars, workers in the industry worry their days might be numbered...

Vouziers, France: As France faces a 2035 deadline to phase out new combustion engine cars, workers in the industry worry their days might be numbered too.

While there is plenty of optimism in certain regions of France, in particular in the north of the country where a "Battery Valley" is emerging, workers at parts suppliers elsewhere are pessimistic.

With the sale of new cars with petrol and diesel engines allowed for only the next decade in Europe, the industry that employs 200,000 people in France faces a forced march to change.

"The transition (to electric vehicles), it could have been done when Walor bought us but they didn't invest," said Severine Person, a quality control expert at the company's facility in the town of Vouziers in France's northeastern Ardennes region.

Walor bought the facility in 2018. Its production of connecting rods for tractors and trucks is not threatened by the shift to EVs, but demand for transmission differential housings and engine manifolds is likely to see big changes.