Vauxhall rethinks ICE phase-out as EV uptake falls below expectation
Opel-Vauxhall is rethinking its plan to go all-electric from 2028, recognising that the European EV market is vastly different from how it had predicted when setting its transition timeline.
The company announced in 2022 that it would launch its final ICE car in 2024 and was committed to that objective as recently as 2023, but CEO Florian Huettl has told Autocar that the firm will now maintain a flexible powertrain offering for the foreseeable future.
Speaking at the Brussels motor show, he said: “Going forward, it is fair to say that if we re-evaluate and look at today’s reality in comparison to the hypothesis we, the European Union and many actors made a couple of years back, the reality does not live up to that.”
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Asked if he was rethinking Opel-Vauxhall’s EV transition timeline as a result, he said: “I think we need to step back a little bit from that question. What I like to put the focus on these days is the fact that we are already fully electrified.”
He also highlighted that the new Frontera crossover is available at less than £24,000 with petrol or electric power and that the Grandland SUV offers up to 435 miles of range, saying these things were “great steps” towards popularising EVs.
Huettl stopped short of putting a new date on Vauxhall’s ICE phase-out but said: “We have a very clear strategy. I see Opel [and Vauxhall] as full-electric down the road, no doubt.
“Now we have the good situation to be in a multi-energy strategy environment, which means that every one of our well-known cars offer the choice.”
Huettl noted that Opel-Vauxhall parent company Stellantis was already compliant with the UK’s zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate even before the launch of the Frontera and Grandland.
Vauxhall itself sold just under 80,000 cars in the UK in 2024, some 15,900 of which were battery-powered – equating to an EV mix of just under 20%.
“That’s the expression of the relevance of our choices,” he said.
However, Huettl added, EV take-up across Europe as a whole still stands at just 14% and growth is still heavily contingent on government support policies.
“Take [Germany], for example,” he said. “It was by far the biggest EV market in Europe – it is by far the biggest car market – and it lost its way in 2024. It shows how the UK shifted up a gear and Germany could not overtake it.
“We have seen how vulnerable still the electric dynamic is to state support. So in this environment, obviously we need to carefully evaluate each of our steps.
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“Be in no doubt that the future for [Opel and] Vauxhall is to be electric. Yet thanks to the multi-energy strategy, we have the opportunity to go along with the different speed of demand development across the markets.”
Huettl believes there are three building blocks that must be in place to accelerate EV adoption in Europe: “a great offer of products”, “charging infrastructure that is progressing really well” and “a clear direction by the government”.
He pointed out that Opel-Vauxhall already offers a wide choice of EVs across its line-up and points to the company’s support of street-side charger installations in the UK as evidence of its efforts to make EVs easier to live with: “It’s something we see as part of our responsibility.”
He also hailed the UK government’s ZEV mandate and 2030 cut-off for new ICE car sales as helpfully marked-out deadlines for his firm to follow: “The direction is very clear. We are happy when a government takes a clear direction.”
He said that “support systems of any kind” are also an effective means of swapping consumers into EVs, “especially ones that make electric mobility available to a wider audience”.
“When all of this comes together, or most of them, then you see movement in the way to electrification.”
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