Automakers embrace an electric future at Paris motor show

In the moments that followed, automakers including Renault, General Motors’ Opel and Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz also introduced electrical models, highlighting how the trade fair was controlled by the race to battery-powered vehicles for the mass market.

The magnifying competitors in this area comes as diesel faces difficult questions over its long-lasting practicality because of issues over emissions of damaging nitrogen oxides.

The issues, brought into sharp focus by the Volkswagen emissions scandal in 2015, have actually caused predictions that diesel’s grip on the European market will move in the coming years as consumers and regulators turn against the fuel because of its part in air pollution, and connection to respiratory illness and premature deaths.

A study by AlixPartners, a consultancy, had predicted in June that diesel cars’ market share in Europe will fall from 50 percent today to just 9 percent by 2030.

Automakers are discussing when electric cars might outsell diesel car– an unthinkable situation just five years earlier.