Electric Mobility: What We Own, What We Share, and What We Fear

A car is never just a car.

It’s independence. It’s private space. It’s memory and identity. For many, it’s also an emotional anchor. No wonder car brands invest billions into shaping not only technology but also cultural image. Toyota equals reliability, Volvo equals safety, Porsche equals speed—and fun. Renault? Value with a French twist. These identities sell far more than specs or pricing tables ever could.

And that’s exactly why we should be careful when we start treating EVs as just a hardware commodity.

At the EcoMat conference in Istanbul, the discussion kicked off by Hakan Dogu wasn’t just about batteries and motors. It was about meaning, ownership, identity—and what might be changing forever.

Tech ≠ Trust

Chinese EVs are here. They’re not just cheap—they’re very good. Superior range, seamless software integration, fast charging, and high automation. BYD is now one of the top global players by volume. And yet, would I buy one?

Not even at half price.

Because it’s not just about price or tech, it’s about trust. And today, when you buy a car, you’re also buying a data pipe that constantly streams your location, driving habits, and even conversations. So if I have to choose between feeding my data to an overregulated EU bureaucracy or to the Chinese Communist Party, I’ll choose Brussels every time.

China has built an impressive technological machine. But brand image is not something you can scale with a CAPEX injection. It’s decades of meaning, of alignment, of cultural fit. Unless China becomes a democracy and remains one for the next fifty years, I’m not letting its EVs into my garage—or my metadata stream.

(That’s why I’m not on TikTok, I don’t use DeepSeek, and I get slightly nervous when my Xiaomi robot vacuum follows me around the flat - so I keep a baseball bat handy, just in case.)

Will Brand Loyalty Survive In The Age Of Electric Mobility?

This emotional power of car ownership might hold. Or it might collapse.

None of my three grown-up kids has a driver’s license. I got mine the moment I turned 18. For them, cars don’t signal freedom—they signal congestion, cost, and climate guilt. Urban Gen Z prefers walkable cities, ride shares, and maybe e-scooters. That’s where the battle is shifting—from owning a car to using mobility.

If that happens, brand loyalty becomes harder to maintain. It’s easy to love Porsche when it sits in your driveway. It’s harder to feel the same about a shared Tesla robotaxi that smells faintly of wet dog.

Autonomous vehicles and mobility-as-a-service could upend the personal meaning of cars entirely. Or at least dilute it.

Infrastructure Reality Check

Let’s assume we do want everyone to switch to EVs. Can we?

Not without pain.

European cities were built before the car, let alone the charger. Narrow streets, dense layouts, and heritage buildings don’t mesh well with rapid EV infrastructure rollout. Strengthening the local grid to support mass charging is technically possible, but economically painful and politically slow.

So we’re likely to see a multi-modal future: more trains, trams, buses, bikes, walking—and a niche but persistent segment of private EV owners. The car becomes more of a “subscription object” or luxury good. Less mass, more margin.

That’s where brand still matters.

Europe: Tech-Late but Brand-Rich

Europe doesn’t make most of the EV supply chain. Not the motors, not the batteries, not the inverters. Over 90% of all battery-grade materials, cell manufacturing, and EV components are sourced from China, and a bit from Korea, or Japan.

So if Europe wants to catch up, it will have to pay.

In my previous roles localising wind turbine and battery production, I’ve seen this up close. Our made-in-Russia products were always more expensive than Chinese imports. We improved, localised, and optimised, but we never caught up on cost.

Europe will likely follow the same pattern: local EV and battery production that is 20–40% more expensive than Asian imports.

Can this be justified?

Yes, if two things happen:

1. Friendly shoring: Europe can offset some costs by building upstream capacity in strategically aligned, lower-cost nations like Morocco.

2. Brand premium: “Made in EU” still means something. Look at the comeback of the Renault 5. Nobody’s buying it for specs. They're buying nostalgia, identity, and the comfort of knowing who gets their data.

Asia + Europe = Necessary Partnership

At the same time, reshoring without Asian partners is wishful thinking.

While China has most of the technological and resource cards, Korean and Japanese firms already understand Europe. They are geopolitically safer, commercially reliable, and looking to expand. Collaborating with them is less about dependency and more about co-creation.

Europe offers the world’s largest, most stable car market. Asian players bring the tech and the know-how. A partnership of equals is possible—if we treat it that way.

The Chinese case is trickier. Many European players are already working with Chinese firms. That cooperation is not going away. But public sentiment, political optics and geopolitical risks will make these partnerships harder to scale or sustain.

What Comes Next?

I don’t believe car ownership will disappear. But it will shift—from mass-market to a more curated, value-driven choice. EVs won’t just be appliances. They’ll remain symbols of values, identity, and trust.

Brand, once again, will make or break the deal.

So the race is not just about cost, nor even technology. It’s about meaning.

And meaning takes time to build.

👋 Want help navigating this new mobility landscape? I advise companies and investors on how to scale cleantech businesses in a way that balances technology, market, and trust.