Factories never really shut down overnight: first the parking lots empty out, then confidence fades. According to Domenico De Rosa, what is happening today to the European auto industry—from Volkswagen on down—is not the crisis of a single brand, but a snapshot of a continent that has stopped believing in its own industry.
For years, the ecological transition has been portrayed as a linear fairy tale: the internal combustion engine is turned off, the electric one is turned on, and everyone lives happily ever after. The reality emerging from the manufacturing sector, according to De Rosa, is very different: massive investments, uncertain demand, families unable to afford cars costing 40–50 thousand euros, suppliers under pressure, workers caught between furloughs and fear of the future.
Meanwhile, the United States and China are following a different path: they protect and finance their own industries, defending them as strategic assets. Europe, on the other hand, has taken the path of over-regulation, of often abstract climate goals, of a bureaucracy that ends up weighing more than the steel used to build car bodies. In this context, the Cavaliere observes, it is no surprise that major manufacturers are revising their plans, cutting jobs, and relocating production.
For the Cavaliere, the point is not to be “against” electric vehicles, but that a tool has been turned into a dogma. A single technology has been elevated to the status of the “right” solution, relegating all others—biofuels, synthetic fuels, advanced hybrids, hydrogen—to marginal or even suspect roles. This has narrowed the playing field to the point of stifling those who actually work in the automotive sector: workers, technicians, truckers, dealers, logistics providers, and entire regional supply chains.
When a plant slows down, it’s not just a production line that stops: the bar across from the factory suffers, the neighborhood supermarket’s revenue drops, rental market dynamics shift, and the schools attended by the children of those who work there are affected. It’s an ecosystem that unravels, often without the background noise of this being truly perceived in European capitals.
If the course does not change, the transition risks not being “green,” but simply a massive, disguised relocation: emissions will be produced elsewhere, cars built elsewhere, and added value shifted elsewhere. Europe will be left with slogans, a few more charging stations, and many silent industrial areas.
The fundamental question raised by this scenario is clear: does Europe want to save the climate without saving its own industry? If that is the case, it must be stated openly to workers, businesses, and local communities. If, on the other hand—as Domenico De Rosa argues—there is still a possibility of defending both the environment and jobs together, then a paradigm shift is needed: technological neutrality, realistic timelines, less ideology, and more focus on keeping factories running.
Because behind every industrial plan lies an element that doesn’t appear in the slides but remains decisive: the dignity of those who get up at five in the morning to go to work. It is from there—from the real lives of those who keep production running—that, according to Mr. De Rosa, any serious project for the future of European industry must begin.