Mobilité : l’Europe doit passer des objectifs aux conditions de leur réalisation

In 2025, 28% of new heavy vehicles sold in China were electric, compared to just 1.9% in the European Union (ICCT). This fifteen-to-one discrepancy reveals a deeper issue: we have set trajectories without creating the economic and political conditions for their realization. While China has the power to plan and execute, Europe is liberal and democratic, unable to decree the transition through decree.

Instead, Europe must make it possible by aligning interests, rules, and risks. Who bears the risk of scaling up? Who invests first? Who guarantees demand? The goal is clear: sustainable, sovereign, desirable, and viable mobility. However, the coming months present crucial decisions, and Europe must transform its ambitions into conditions for action, moving from a policy of objectives to a policy of conditions.

After all, when the path is not credible, the destination itself becomes contested. Three examples illustrate this point. First, heavy vehicles. In Europe, 78% of freight travels by road, meaning virtually everything in our stores has traveled by truck. To electrify these flows, the technology is available, and the framework is in place; the issue is economic.

The purchase price is higher, the residual value is uncertain, charging stations must be deployed, the electrical connections are too slow, and caution surrounds a technology that progresses rapidly. No single actor can bear these risks alone. The solution is to better distribute them, or even transform risks into opportunities for some.

Battery leasing, residual value guarantees, shared charging, and volume security through contracts: the ecosystem already has some of the solutions. Public action becomes decisive where the market cannot or cannot act quickly, particularly on electrical connections and interoperability. It must also reassure about the strength of the path: not by imposing constraints on everyone, but by making the trajectory credible, facilitating voluntary transformations, and supporting those who take the first risks.

These are the ones who need help before the followers join a market that has become readable and desirable. Europe must not review its destination with each execution difficulty, as nothing discourages investment more than the instability of rules. It must create the conditions to reach it. Otherwise, uncertainty about scaling fuels contestation of the path itself.

The choice is to share the risk to create the market or remain too long captive of diesel. Second, small popular cars. Europe has made icons of them: the Citroën 2CV, the Fiat 500, the Coccinella. Then our cars grew: some models weigh twice as much as their namesake of the same name, and their price followed the same trajectory.

Today, the European electric car remains out of reach for many households. We started with the premium, subsidized SUVs, hoping costs would eventually decrease; meanwhile, a flood of affordable, mass-produced small electric cars from Asia is preparing to occupy the space we choose to leave open. The Commission tackled the problem directly, proposing a dedicated category for compact electric vehicles with incentives for those produced in Europe.

This is an advance. We believe more must be done, as everything is at stake here: industrial sovereignty, purchasing power, and ecology. This is the ambition of the Pop Car project, which we are leading with a coalition of industry and experts: a better-sized, lighter, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly car, without compromising safety or desirability.

Again, we do not want to force everyone to accelerate at the same pace, but secure a European offer that will launch the market and let adoption expand when price, use, and trust are in place. The question is: what electric car can a European household afford tomorrow, and where will it be produced? The choice is to make the entry-level segment a strategic one or let it play out elsewhere.

Third, artificial intelligence. It orchestrates an increasing share of our mobility, routing millions of vehicles, arbitrating entire traffic flows, distributing scarce resources: time, public space, loads, and energy. Since August 2, 2026, the AI Act imposes its first transparency obligations on certain systems. Necessary, but it does not specify what AI should optimize.

AI executes instructions, but it does not decide alone what matters. Should we prioritize speed, efficiency, or ecology? Should we favor operator cost or accessibility for all? These priorities are not imposed by themselves; they are collective choices written in software and engaging both mobility and physical infrastructure. Our conviction: any AI deployed in mobility should demonstrate its net benefit - carbon, user cost, accessibility - rather than just the time saved.

Here too, regulators play a decisive role: setting the collective compass without stifling innovation, giving confidence to pioneers, and then facilitating the diffusion of useful solutions. The choice is to write the instruction collectively or accept opaque rules written by others for us. Three examples, one common thread.