- ICE car ban could be pushed back to 2040
- Manufacturers opposed the legislation
- More hybrid and range-extender powertrains expected to arrive
A report in German newspaper Bild this week claims that plans to impose a ban by 2035 on the sale of new cars with internal combustion engines in the European Union have been abandoned, as PK Press Club reported.
Manfred Weber – president of the EPP, the European Parliament’s largest party – reportedly said the plans were “irrelevant” and that a more flexible emissions reduction scheme should be introduced instead.
“For new registrations from 2035, a reduction in CO2 emissions of 90% will now be mandatory for car manufacturers’ fleet targets, instead of 100%,” Weber told Bild.
There is still a vision to reduce CO2 emissions by 100%, but Weber says that plan has been pushed back to 2040. This decision was apparently made to secure “tens of thousands of industrial jobs.”
Unsurprisingly, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, the Stellantis Group and Renault have all spoken out in favor of scrapping the ban, saying decisions should be made by customers rather than legislation.
The original plan, which was approved in 2021, called for banning the sale of any new vehicles with an internal combustion engine, forcing automakers to sell only purely electric vehicles by 2035.
However, many manufacturers argued that the deadline was too tight and that the demand for electric vehicles simply wasn’t there from customers.
This is why major players, such as Porsche and Ford, have reversed course and moved away from purely electric plans in recent months.
Porsche, for example, proposed that the new Macan and Cayenne would be fully electric, but then changed its mind and revealed that gasoline and hybrid vehicles would still be offered in the future.
The UK, although now no longer part of the European Union, was among the first countries to offer a sales range for ICE cars in 2020, but is yet to announce what its plans are following Weber’s announcement.
Analysis: electric vehicles remain inevitable
Although the timetable has potentially been pushed back by five years, plans are still underway to reduce CO2 emissions by 90%, which remains a difficult goal for many manufacturers.
This means that any vehicle with a combustion engine will likely become a plug-in hybrid or extended-range hybrid in order to comply with the legislation.
It could also accelerate the use of advanced biofuels and e-fuels, as these can be certified carbon neutral if made from captured CO2 and renewable electricity.
The proposed relaxation of the deadline will give automakers more time to make what appears to be the inevitable shift to purely electric propulsion. In the meantime, they can still develop hybrid powertrains that are proving popular with customers due to their efficiency without the range anxiety that comes with it.
Either way, over the next 15 years, most major automakers will continue to turn to pure electric vehicles in order to meet their 100% CO2 emissions reduction targets, while pure-electric newcomers – particularly Chinese brands – will continue to have a competitive advantage.
Not only can they produce competitive electric vehicles at lower cost, but they also lack the historical heritage of manufacturing ICE powertrains, and therefore the range and performance markers that come with it.
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