Stellantis will invest more than €30bn to develop electric cars...

Stellantis will invest more than €30bn to develop electric cars and software by 2025 as the carmaker plans to push up sales of battery and hybrid powered vehicles. The company, formed this year by the merger of France’s PSA and Fiat Chrysler, said on Thursday that it would release a range of cars that can drive up to 500 miles on a single charge, and also plans to open five battery factories across Europe and the US by the end of the decade.The group, whose 14 brands include Jeep, Peugeot, Vauxhall, and Ram, wants 70 per cent of European sales and 40 per cent of US sales to be of low-emission vehicles by 2030.It will build four manufacturing platforms that will allow it to make battery versions of the vehicles in its range, which run from small hatchbacks to large pick-up trucks. The models will be able to go from 300 miles to 500 miles on a single charge.The company has to bring together the two businesses, which before the merger sat at the opposite end of the industry’s electric spectrum.PSA passed last year’s CO2 targets in the EU because of its range of electric cars and improvements in its petrol engines.FCA however only met the European rules after paying hundreds of millions of euros to Tesla to count the US brand’s electric cars as part of its own fleet. The Italian-American side of the new business is considered the industry’s laggard on electric technology.Carmakers are facing the prospect of stricter emissions targets that are likely to drive electric sales faster in the EU.Brussels is expected this month to unveil its updated CO2 targets, while the next generation of engine regulations expected this decade will push up the costs of traditional combustion systems.Earlier on Thursday, Stellantis said margins for the first half would be higher than the 5.5-7.5 per cent previously expected, despite the sales shortfall caused by the industry’s chip crisis.