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The transition to electric vehicles (EVs) would impose a “significant burden” on auto suppliers, Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said on Wednesday as Western automakers race to cut costs and compete with Chinese peers.

Tavares said the challenge for automakers was to sell EVs, whose production costs are 40 per cent to 50 per cent higher, at the same price as equivalent petrol models. This forces them to cut costs at every level of their operations, including supply chains and logistics.

“You are going to see a huge shift of the supplier base. The sourcing will move from the Western world to the best cost countries,” he said during the Bernstein Strategic Decisions conference.

“The EV race has become a cost cutting race,” he added.

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