The EU reached an agreement last autumn so that from 2035 all new cars and vans that are marketed in the community market are “zero emissions”, which in practice would mean a ban on combustion vehicles.
However, the final adoption of the standard is still pending the last formal step, the green light from the ministers. The rotating presidency of the EU, which Sweden occupies this semester, planned to include the matter as a point for adoption without discussion in an ordinary council of ministers this week, but the presidency itself has indicated that the decision “is postponed to a later meeting », without setting a new date to retake the issue, and after the reluctance shown by Germany, Italy, Poland and Bulgaria.
The German Minister of Transport, the liberal Volker Wissing, requested as a condition that the European Commission submit a proposal to accompany the new standard so that vehicles that run on synthetic fuels (‘e-fuels’) can continue to be marketed beyond 2035 in The EU.
This position, however, clashes with the position of the ‘greens’ in the German coalition government, such as the Minister for the Environment, Steffi Lemke, who defends supporting the veto agreed at the European level.
In Spain there are currently 18,000 charging points, enough according to the association of users of electric vehicles for the mobile fleet that exists, but thinking about the future, many more will be needed. Electric cars barely represent 4% in Spain, far from the figures of other European countries.
Some five million electric vehicles are expected to circulate in our country by 2030, with sales of this type of car stepping on the accelerator.
From the European Association of Vehicle Manufacturers, ACEA, they indicate that “technological openness continues to be essential to preserve the necessary agility to respond to different needs and adapt to changing circumstances. As the current energy crisis demonstrates, diversification is essential to improve Europe’s resilience.” This entity has also stressed that the EU automobile industry is “unequivocally and fully” committed to addressing climate change “as soon as possible.” They also emphasize that “everything is being done to invest massively in electrification, build the vertical value chain, save jobs and help the EU remain competitive.”
“With inflation soaring and battery prices rising for the first time in over a decade, affordability risks becoming a major hurdle in the transition to zero emissions. For this reason, policy makers must also deal with the emissions of the existing car park”, they add from ACEA.
The position of environmentalists
Meanwhile, the European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E) considers that German liberals “risk Germany’s credibility on the world stage” by blocking, or at least delaying without a date, the vote in the European Union to eliminate the sale of new cars and vans with combustion engines from 2035.
Thus, the senior director of vehicles and mobility at T&E, Julia Poliscanova, who added that the German Liberal Party (FDP) “is turning the elimination of engines in Europe into a battle for the soul of the German coalition”.
Poliscanova has considered that the FDP’s defense of the internal combustion engine using CO2-neutral bio and synthetic fuels “could be good for its bases, but it would give the United States and China an advantage, which threaten to overtake Europe with massive investments in electric cars and batteries.
T&E considers that ‘e-fuels’ are a much less ecological solution for cars than battery electric ones since this fuel will not alleviate air pollution problems and because of its high production cost.
Last week, during the delivery of the ABC Award for the Best Car of the Year 2023, the commissioner of the Strategic Project for the Recovery and Economic Transformation of the Electric and Connected Vehicle (Perte VEC), José María López, signed that “the European Commission is leaving to reconsider the deadline to end the sale of combustion vehicles in the European Union (EU)”, established for 2035.
«Europe is going to rethink it, because we have to analyze what the state of the technologies is when we get closer to 2035. What we cannot do is embark national and European users in a time limit in which we do not know what to do. In fact, now people don’t know which car to buy,” said the Perte VEC commissioner.