Failure of leadership. That's what the history books are going to say about this era.
Doesn't matter.
The initial suggestion was of a ban in 2030 from 10 countries that already had plans of banning fossil fuels from 2030 or sooner.
The 2035 deadline was a compromise to allow the car manufacturers to get up to speed. If they try to prolong that, some countries might just go back to their local legislation and ban the cars even sooner.
EU can potentially claim that such bans are against the free trade in EU and force it through, but they can never actually force anyone to buy the cars.
The decision of switching to EVs is entirely up to the local drivers, regardless of what arbitrary deadline the manufacturers try to lobby through EU.
Even in France and Germany, who produce fossil fuel cars, there are cities with environmental zones banning fossil fuel cars. Just as it today doesn't make any sense for people near Berlin to buy a diesel car that they can't drive in Berlin, every potential car buyer in all of EU are going to have to consider if they can even use or resell a fossil fuel car in their local area within the expected lifetime of a car.
Absolutely pathetic by EU leadership. We’re still 10 years away, with plenty of time for them to retool their factories, and come out with new models, and they’re already giving up (“””pushing the date back””” lol).
I wonder if it will result in the desired outcome for the German car industry. The benefits of BEV cars are broad and the economies of scale are picking up. I could see their resistance to electrifying only strengthening the Chinese car brands.
If the German car industry wants to survive they should Lobby the government to make it illegal to bring new non-electric models to market. Force them to do electric cars and they might survive
The German car industry is more then just the big car brands. They are aware of the Chinese competition and they have invested a lot to be able to compete. However for parts suppliers this is much more difficult. If you are a making some metal engine casts for example, you really do not have expertise, which translate well to EV production. So you probably go down. Those sort of ICE car part suppliers have fired 50k workers in Germany this year already. The transition is hurting them badly and they would love five more years.
The good news is that Germany is at 30% BEV production and rising fast. So those companies are already in a very bad place and so is their lobbying power long term. For Germany Spain and France blocking this is probably the best thing to happen. Oh and the EV industry did get buyers subsidies in Germany for the next five years.
Yes, I cannot for the life of me understand how this decision is supposed to save the German automotive industry. It will not stop the rapid development of BEV cars, which already perform very well in many respects today.
Perhaps the reasoning is that the industry has fallen so far behind that there is no longer any prospect of catching up with the technological lead of way more innovative manufacturers. However, further lobbying by this influential industry could well continue to hold back the expansion of the charging infrastructure. This would then provide arguments in favor of combustion engine models for some time to come. Of course, this would severely hamper the future viability of Germany and probably also Europe, but this clique is certainly capable of it despite the massive negative effects.
I mean, until around 2003, Germany was the world market leader in photovoltaic systems—today, the country hardly plays a role in this industry anymore because it never received the support it needed to remain competitive. The same parties that are now at work here again were responsible for this - and there was of course massive lobbying involved.
I consider this not only a failure of political and economic leadership, but also unscrupulous cronyism at the expense of Europe's future viability in favor of large corporations that have no interest in innovation whatsoever and even actively prevent it in order to protect their core business.
This entire article imho stinks. Some insurance company boss from the UK says that the EU, which the UK is no longer a part of is going to do something. Sure some actors would like that, but this seems strange. Especially with France and Spain being against it.
This is unacceptable
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