UNECE, the 87th session of the Inland Transport Committee (Geneva, February 11, 2025)

Your Excellencies, dear colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a privilege and a pleasure to address you today as the new Secretary General of OICA, the International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers.
Our industry shares common objectives with the UNECE: to create a global regulatory framework that promotes innovation, while guaranteeing the safety and sustainability of transportation. We would like to acknowledge the exceptional joint work we have with the ITC as well as with all the expert groups, including, in particular, WP29, the World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations. Thanks to these concerted efforts, our industries benefit from clear and consistent rules. This facilitates mass production and therefore the marketing of affordable, safe, high-performance vehicles with the best possible environmental standards.

For our automotive industry, the “climate transition” is more of a “revolution”. We support it wholeheartedly while drastically adapting our production tools. This revolution will be a success if it is pragmatic, technologically neutral and economically sustainable. The very essence of our job as manufacturers is to be realistic in terms of deadlines and technological choices. Any increase in complexity carries a considerable risk of non-acceptance by customers. The replacement of the vehicle fleet would be threatened. Our three planets, industry, politics and the customer, must absolutely be aligned.

The harmonization of regulations is a major challenge, which together we have successfully tackled with regard to the technologies that have made the current vehicle. We must now use this know-how to address the evolution of connectivity, autonomous driving and artificial intelligence. And we must not, through immoderate modernism, be led into a new “Wild West” that would replace standardization.

OICA is proud to work alongside the ITC. We are convinced that only this international, multisectoral cooperation will make it possible to meet the challenges of transportation. Today, in what must be considered a difficult geopolitical context, this multilateral dialogue is more important than ever. You can trust OICA, which, since 1919, whatever the vagaries of history, has always been there.

Together, we will succeed in building this global regulatory framework. Because together, we have a responsibility to guarantee the future of safe, sustainable and accessible transportation for the whole world.

Thank you for your attention.