Seat boss Wayne Griffiths on Thursday announced his resignation as president of ANFAC, the employers’ association of car manufacturers, “disappointed” by the government’s “inaction on behalf of electrification”. Griffiths has already communicated his decision to the ANFAC Board of Directors and General Assembly, and will remain in office until a successor is named. He also said, “The commitment of political representatives to the sector falls short of what the country deserves.” Griffiths reiterated that Spain “must improve public charging infrastructure and facilitate the purchase of electric cars through a real financial incentive scheme.”
“I renewed my chairmanship in December of ANFAC because the government committed to being an ally of the sector and quickly putting in place concrete and effective measures,” Griffiths said, recalling that there was also a commitment to renew the plan of movements and promote transshipment. . He said: “These measures have not yet arrived, and that is why I am disappointed, because it is time to accelerate, not slow down.”
Griffiths noted that in recent months he had insisted “both publicly and privately on the need for cooperation between the public and private sectors to transform Spain into a hub for electric mobility in Europe.” The electricity market witnessed stagnation at 10% of the total. He added, “Spain is not progressing as quickly as it should,” pointing out that instead of moving forward, it is “falling backwards.”
The CEO of Seat & Cupra said he would continue to defend the interests of the Spanish car industry, but that “without support, without coordinated action and without a real commitment on the part of public representatives” he could no longer “contribute further”. “For the President of ANFAC.
In March, while presenting Seat’s results, Griffiths called on the Spanish government and the European Union to do their “duty” to promote the electric car, warning that investments and jobs were “at stake.”
Subsequently, Griffiths criticized that “excessive” EU regulation had become a “constraint” for the sector. He also warned of the absence of “political stability and normal institutional life” in Spain. “We are gambling with our future by investing more than 10,000 million euros, and at the moment less than 5% of sales are pure electric cars,” he said.
Support from manufacturers
The 58 car brands represented by the association issued a statement of support for Griffiths in which they stressed that in recent years car manufacturers have presented “many proposals to achieve emissions reduction targets” and all of them find themselves in a “worrying” situation. .
Anfac members are demanding from the state government a system of direct assistance for the purchase of electric cars and incentives for companies and regret “not receiving a response” to the requests. In the same way, they consider that the infrastructure feeder network is “still insufficient” to achieve the required coverage goals in the sector. They recall that CEO Pedro Sanchez promised in February to respond to the employer’s requests, and four months later “they had no news of that.”
On the contrary, they reported that during this period “the electric passenger vehicle market stagnated” and the share amounted to 10.5% of the total, lower than the previous year (10.8%).
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