Microlino considers moving production to China

The Ouboter family, founders of the Swiss company that manufactures the Microlino, is seriously evaluating moving its production to China due to the lack of incentives for buying light electric vehicles in Europe. In statements to the media, Wim Ouboter, backed by his children Oliver and Merlin, has not hesitated to express his frustration at the unequal treatment received by these affordable urban cars compared with conventional electric passenger vehicles.

Until now, the Swiss company he runs has invested close to 70 million Swiss francs – a little over 75 million euros – to make the Microlino a reality, and they have managed to have around 4,800 units of their light city car roll off the assembly line at their Turin plant.

The enormous effort made by the Ouboter family to bring the Microlino to market has not, however, been rewarded with support from European authorities. Vehicles in the L7e category, as is the case with the Microlino, are excluded from any government subsidy, CO2 emissions credits or any tax advantage that conventional electric passenger vehicles do enjoy.

As if this were not enough, this differentiation does not exist when applying import duties, in this case bearing the same levies as conventional vehicles. A situation that the Ouboter family considers extremely unfair.

China overtakes Europe on the right

By contrast, China offers far more attractive conditions than Europe, which are not limited, as one might expect, to the existence of production costs up to 50 percent lower, but also include generous state subsidies and possible direct investments.

Faced with this situation, Wim Ouboter has made it very clear, warning that if nothing changes and European authorities do not take some measure, production of the Microlino will inevitably cease to take place in Europe. In this regard, earlier this year Microlino also considered producing its electric city car in India as an alternative, but this possibility did not materialise because the incentives offered by China were much greater.

In any case, at the recent Brussels Motor Show, Microlino presented a new variant of its electric city car, thereby demonstrating that the company continues to work despite the difficulties.