EC presented the Automotive Industry Action Plan

On 5 March 2025, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, unveiled the Automotive Industry Action Plan. It aims to address a broad range of issues relevant to the sector, such as fostering technological innovation and the development of next-generation vehicles, establishing a pragmatic and predictable regulatory framework, and ensuring access to talent and resources.

We welcome the Commission’s proposal to establish an automotive industry alliance driving innovation for future vehicles and a dedicated automotive innovation partnership. The EUCAR Members and our stakeholder communities appreciate the immediate actions and look forward to aligning our initiatives.

This alliance should further facilitate European value creation. Therefore, industry priorities and needs should drive the focus areas and roadmaps. The vehicle integration of new technologies (e.g. AI, software-defined vehicles, chips, batteries) should facilitate all mobility and transport use cases and not be limited to autonomous vehicles.

We see the action plan as a positive starting point to jointly elaborate key automotive innovation challenges and the most appropriate framework conditions to address them.

EUCAR’s recently published ‘Perspective on the Future of Automotive R&I in Europe’ highlights the view of vehicle manufacturers on competitiveness and innovation.

The EC published a Q&A to bring further clarity to the Action Plan (here).