The chief executive of green energy firm Octopus has issued a stark warning to Europe's automotive giants, stating they risk following defunct companies like Blockbuster into obsolescence unless they fully commit to battery electric vehicles (EVs).
A Stark Warning from Industry
Greg Jackson, the founder and CEO of Octopus Energy, delivered the cautionary message as lobbying efforts by some carmakers led Brussels to soften its plans for a complete transition to electric transport. He argued that European manufacturers must urgently prepare to compete with the rising tide of electric vehicles from China.
The UK government has pledged to outlaw sales of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030, with only zero-emission models permitted from 2035. Similarly, the European Commission revised its own total ban, now aiming for 90% of new cars sold from 2035 to be zero-emission, following pressure from industry critics.
The Chinese Challenge and Historical Precedents
"What’s happening in Europe is you’ve got a small number of very powerful companies that are not very good at making EVs," Jackson told the Press Association. He emphasised that the competitive threat from China is not merely about subsidies or cheap labour, but superior investment in research, development, and modern manufacturing techniques.
Drawing parallels with iconic companies that failed to adapt, Jackson warned: "We saw what happened to Blockbuster, to Borders books, to Kodak. We don’t want that to happen to the car companies, but they have to save themselves." He cited Nokia's dismissal of the iPhone as a cautionary tale, where the company clung to physical buttons instead of innovating.
"The reality is, these technologies are out there," he stated. "The genie is out of the bottle... and Europe has to get to grips with it, because they can’t stop it. They will do a lot better by trying to compete than trying to deny."
EVs as a Grid Solution, Not Just a Problem
Jackson also highlighted a major opportunity being missed in national energy planning. He argued that the UK's grid strategies fail to account for the plummeting cost of large-scale batteries and the vast storage potential within the nation's future EV fleet.
"The cost of grid-scale batteries is plummeting," he said. "Our UK grid plans don’t take account of that, which is why we could replace an awful lot of the planned new infrastructure with cheap batteries."
He pointed out that an electric car's battery is large enough to power a typical home for nearly a week. Octopus alone already manages about 2.5 gigawatts of storage capacity from customers' electric cars, which can be used to absorb cheap, renewable energy when it's abundant.
"When they get to 100 per cent you’ve literally got an entire system’s worth of storage for free," Jackson explained, urging a urgent reassessment of infrastructure spending to harness this resource.
The call for action comes as the UK's EV market continues to grow. In 2025, registrations of pure battery EVs rose by 23.9% year-on-year to 473,348, capturing a 23.4% share of the new car market.
