As CEO of Stellantis, where will you spend most of your time?
After closing, the fair answer is hopefully not in a plane. But of course there would be some travel -- mostly to Turin, Amsterdam, Paris, Detroit, Sao Paulo, Russelsheim. All of this is part of a global company. Of course we would have significant digital interaction, that is for sure, but human interaction would also have a significant role to play. This is about management, about expressing some kind of direction and convincing people that what we are doing makes sense, inspiring people to go in one direction or the other direction, and that means human interaction. We have learned through two successive lockdowns in Europe that we can run a car company in a crisis mode using digital tools. As long as a sense of team spirit is created by having human interactions -- you can have dinner, you could have a drink, you can have arguments or discussions -- then digital communications tools are appropriate, and that is going to reduce the burden of travel, jet lag and time differences.
This is an important year for emissions in the EU, with a 95 g/km CO2 target. Overall, are you happy with PSA's emissions performance?
What makes me happy is that my electrified-vehicle sales mix is going up quite fast, which means that we are in a "pull" mode in terms of selling electrified cars, which is important for the profitability of that kind of technology. We are the No. 1 carmaker in terms of CO2 emissions reduction rate in Europe, which means that we were able to bring the right technologies and the right pace to the market to support this very important trend that is requested by the societies in which we operate. I'm also happy with the strategy that we put in place years ago. All the technologies and the products that we are selling right now, whether pure EVs or plug-in hybrids, were decided in 2014. At the time we were coming from a year [2013] when our operating profit margin rate was minus 2.8 percent. So, in the first year of the turnaround, we were able to decide relevant investments on our core technology that brought all the electrified technologies and multi-energy platforms that we are using successfully now. Now we are preparing a dedicated EV platform, which we call eVMP, that will be used from 2023 or 2024 onward. We recognize that from that period the sales mix will be such that purely electric vehicles deserve a dedicated state of the art platform.
Next year's CO2 compliance will increase to 100 percent of all cars sold from 95 percent this year, and the low-emissions "supercredit" multiplying factor will decrease to 1.67 from 2. To remain compliant will PSA need to decrease its emissions by 10 percent?
Possibly more than that. If you look at 2030 versus 2021, the regulation is minus 37.5 percent [less CO2]. But to align with the European Green Deal [to be carbon neutral by 2050] that the EU is preparing, I believe there is a significant probability that the minus 37.5 percent will be made more stringent. I think the mindset is, Stop making internal-combustion cars; bring all of the mobility to a zero-emissions level, which means electrification; and make sure that you do it fast. The speed at which we can do it is going to create a huge stress in the industry. The companies who cannot adapt to these new conditions are taking the risk of disappearing or being consolidated with other companies. But it's not only a question for carmakers. In Europe, there are 14 million people working in the automotive industry, and we need to think about the ecosystem around us to see if it can move as fast as we are going to move. You often hear that carmakers look like dinosaurs, but it's not always the case. We are becoming a very sophisticated, very aligned, very focused industry that may surprise some of the stakeholders.
Do you see a future for the diesel, or would PSA's money be better spent on accelerating the electrification of gasoline engines?
We are doing what we need to do to continue to sell diesel cars because the customers are asking us to do so. Our sales mix is reasonably stable at about 30 percent diesel. A few years ago it was a little bit above 50 percent. I am sure in the near future we will have to wind down manufacturing activities for diesel engines to replace that with manufacturing activities for electrified components of our electric powertrains. So, as long as our customers are happy with an affordable mobility and we are compliant with the CAFE rules, it's just fine. But there is a point in time where the constraints will generate such a significant additional cost or engineering-resource consumption that we will decide to reallocate those resources.