The Guardian’s Saturday analysis frames what’s happening in Western auto boardrooms with unusual bluntness: pulling back from electric vehicles while oil prices spike over the Iran war is, as one former industry chief puts it, a “profound strategic mistake.” The historical parallel is Detroit in the 1980s, when Japanese competitors ate the American industry’s lunch one fuel-efficient model at a time. Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis have now collectively absorbed roughly $53 billion in EV-related writedowns since December 2025. BYD, meanwhile, unveiled its second-generation Blade Battery on March 5, delivering 250 miles of range in five minutes of charging: a capability that doesn’t exist anywhere on European or American charging networks today.

The gap is no longer theoretical. It’s being measured in writedown filings and sales registrations every month.

BYD’s Blade Battery 2.0 Makes the Western Retreat Look Worse in Real Time

BYD‘s new second-generation Blade Battery charges from 10% to 70% in five minutes using its 1,500 kW Flash Charging network (peak power, available only at BYD’s proprietary stations). The Yangwang U7 flagship sedan achieves 1,006 km of range on China’s CLTC test cycle; adjusted for EPA-equivalent conditions, that’s roughly 400 miles. BYD plans to deploy 20,000 Flash Charging stalls across China by end of 2026, with a European rollout also confirmed. The chemistry is lithium iron phosphate (LFP), the same affordable, thermally stable formulation European manufacturers have largely outsourced to Asian suppliers rather than mastering themselves.

Andy Palmer, the former Aston Martin chief executive who also developed the Nissan Leaf, told The Guardian: “Chinese carmakers have moved early, built real capability in batteries and software, and are scaling fast. If Europe hesitates now, it will hand rivals a structural advantage that becomes harder and harder to reverse.”

The Guardian notes that BYD’s new batteries are entering high-volume mainstream models in the $19,000–$30,000 bracket, not just flagship vehicles. BYD also confirmed its European charging rollout, targeting 3,000 stations by end of 2026. The company is already doubling its European dealer network to 2,000 locations and building factories in Hungary and Turkey that make future import tariffs structurally irrelevant.

Detroit and Europe Are Paying $53 Billion to Exit a Race They Could Have Won Differently

Ford took a $19.5 billion EV charge in December 2025, the largest EV impairment in U.S. auto history, killing the F-150 Lightning and scrapping several future electric models. GM followed with $7.6 billion. Stellantis recorded €22 billion ($26 billion) in writedowns in February, exceeding the company’s own market capitalization at the time. The combined toll: approximately $53 billion to exit EV programs that were themselves built on $7,500 federal tax credits that expired in September 2025.

Julia Poliscanova, director for EVs at the Brussels thinktank Transport & Environment, told The Guardian the calculus at European manufacturers is short-sighted: “That is probably a valid business view if your term as a CEO finishes in two years. That is a stupid view if you still want to be in the car market in 2035.”

At Stellantis, the reversal was especially sharp. Carlos Tavares, who championed electrification publicly as recently as 2024, was pushed out in late 2024. The company has since announced a “freedom to choose” strategy, a rebranding of ICE-first priorities, and launched a fresh hybrid spending push. Volkswagen and Stellantis together control more than 40% of Europe’s car market. Both are now running EV and combustion programs in parallel, which Palmer described pointedly: “A platform that has to accommodate an internal combustion engine, a plug-in hybrid and a battery electric car is not optimised to anything — it’s the worst of all worlds.”

Europe’s 2035 Target Has Already Been Watered Down Under Industry Pressure

Last December, the European Commission scrapped its hard ban on new combustion engine vehicles in 2035 under pressure from Germany and Italy, replacing it with a carve-out allowing cars emitting up to 10% of current exhaust levels past that date. Transport & Environment estimates the change means up to a quarter of cars sold in 2035 could still run on fossil fuels. In Britain, industry lobby group the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders is pushing ministers to dilute the equivalent zero-emission target. Uwe Hochgeschurtz, a former Stellantis Europe COO, told The Guardian: “China decided decades ago to go electric. The US has decided to go full petrol with the latest administration … Europe has no direction. If you want to lose the car industry, go ahead with the confusion.”

Pascal Canfin, an MEP who chaired the European Parliament’s environment committee until 2024, pushed back on blaming politicians: the manufacturers, he said, lobbied for the target weakening themselves, then used the resulting uncertainty as a business excuse. “They are creating themselves the instability, the uncertainty that could jeopardise the whole business model again.”

The Iran War Has Already Changed the Consumer Calculation

Oil prices spiked following the outbreak of the Iran war, driving petrol station prices up sharply across Europe. German car dealer MeinAuto told The Guardian that EV-related online traffic jumped 40% since the conflict began, a direct consumer response to fuel cost exposure. This is the same dynamic that collapsed Detroit’s market in the 1980s: manufacturers optimized for conditions that changed, with no product ready for what replaced them.

The math for EV owners is already different. A driver running a BYD Seal on European electricity pays substantially less per mile than one filling up at current petrol prices. The Seal’s EPA-equivalent range sits around 300 miles on WLTP testing. BYD’s new Blade Battery 2.0 will extend that further once it reaches volume European models, and the company has said it will.

EVXL’s Take

The Guardian’s framing — that western automakers are repeating Detroit’s 1980s mistake — is the right frame, but it undersells the asymmetry. Detroit lost to Japan on fuel efficiency, a problem it could eventually solve. Western automakers now face a competitor that makes its own batteries, mines its own lithium, builds its own chips, and runs software development cycles that European manufacturers match only on paper.

I haven’t driven a BYD on European roads with the Blade Battery 2.0 installed — that hardware isn’t in European showrooms yet. What I can tell you from covering this story across the 2035 reprieve campaign, Stellantis’s $26 billion implosion, and BYD overtaking Tesla in the UK is that every quarter of delay compounds the structural problem. BYD is building factories inside Europe specifically so the tariff conversation becomes irrelevant. The window Hochgeschurtz talks about isn’t closing — it closed for some manufacturers already.

The devil’s advocate case is real: European consumer demand for pure EVs has not accelerated the way policy-makers projected, and charging infrastructure outside major cities remains genuinely inadequate. If demand stays soft and BYD’s European charging rollout underperforms its stated goals, legacy automakers could survive a longer combustion runway. But the Guardian’s data point about 40% spikes in EV interest after petrol prices surge suggests the demand problem is a price problem — and BYD has already solved that in China at $19,000–$30,000 for mainstream models. When those price points reach European streets through Hungarian and Turkish factories, the “weak demand” argument collapses.

Prediction: by end of 2027, at least one major European automaker — most likely Stellantis — will announce a direct technology or supply agreement with a Chinese battery or EV platform supplier to close the cost gap it cannot close internally. The alternative is a second round of writedowns that makes the current $53 billion look modest.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is BYD’s Blade Battery 2.0?

BYD’s second-generation Blade Battery uses lithium iron phosphate (LFP) chemistry and charges from 10% to 70% in five minutes using the company’s 1,500 kW Flash Charging network. The Yangwang U7 sedan equipped with the battery achieves approximately 400 miles of EPA-equivalent range. BYD unveiled the technology in March 2026 and plans to deploy 20,000 Flash Charging stations in China by year-end, with European expansion also confirmed.

How much have Western automakers lost on EVs?

Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis have collectively absorbed approximately $53 billion in EV-related writedowns since December 2025. Ford took $19.5 billion in December after canceling the F-150 Lightning and several planned models. GM followed with $7.6 billion. Stellantis recorded €22 billion ($26 billion) in February 2026.

What happened to the EU’s 2035 combustion engine ban?

The European Commission softened the 2035 ban in December 2025 under pressure from Germany and Italy, allowing manufacturers to continue selling cars emitting up to 10% of current exhaust levels past 2035. Transport & Environment estimates this means up to 25% of cars sold in 2035 could still use fossil fuels.

Why is the Iran war relevant to EV adoption?

The conflict drove oil prices higher, pushing petrol costs up sharply across Europe. German dealer MeinAuto reported EV-related online traffic jumped 40% after the war began. Higher fuel costs historically drive consumers toward more fuel-efficient or electric alternatives, the same dynamic that made Japanese cars attractive in the U.S. after the 1970s oil shocks.

EVXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.