EU reverses 2035 combustion car ban

German and EU officials revealed a deal had been struck in statements on Saturday, with Frans Timmermans, Executive Vice-President for the European Green Deal, Tweeting:

“We have found an agreement with Germany on the future use of eFuels in cars. We will work now on getting the CO2 standards for cars regulation adopted as soon as possible, and the Commission will follow up swiftly with the necessary legal steps to implement recital 11.”

“The way is clear: Europe remains technology-neutral,” German Transport Minister Volker Wissing Tweeted in relation to the agreement.

“Vehicles with combustion engines can also be newly registered after 2035 if they only use CO2-neutral fuels. We secure opportunities for Europe by retaining important options for climate-neutral and affordable mobility.”

It’s no secret that the likes of Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini and more, have been pushing for such an amendment to mooted ICE bans. Much of these marque’s brand value and kudos has been built on a history of emotionally-stimulating internal combustion powerplants.

A silent future has, needless to say, proven a challenging prospect to brand marketers and car enthusiasts alike. Both will be relieved at the news, at the least implying a more secure future for past, present and future ICE power plants, beyond net-zero and beyond fossil fuels.

The significance beyond enthusiasts: motorists at large and the environmental agenda

There are theoretically much further-reaching positives that come from this. Legislative acknowledgement of e-fuels ought to increase appeal in terms of investment in the technology and therefore increase the likelihood of its proliferation. In short, it means we could be more likely to see a broadened infrastructure and affordable access to e-fuels in the future.

This means that while more of a future for ICE is secured, so is its past. ‘Clean’ e-fuels are now more likely to become affordable for everyone, beyond enthusiasts with ageing ICE classics, to motorists for whom an EV is too expensive or ill-suited to their lifestyle. At large, this is a big step towards a future where e-fuels clean up motoring’s past, as EVs look to clean up motoring’s future. The end result: all cars get cleaner.

This is progress, but more must be done

Yet we must continue to stress, as this represents a slackening of the legislative stranglehold on the private automobile, other industries continue to watch on from the sidelines. More must be done to force goals of zero-carbon, carbon neutrality and reduction on other ‘burners' – aviation, shipping, haulage and beyond – for whom battery-electric power may yet prove to be ill-suited.

As yet, the car has proven a hardy scapegoat, as the loss of local tailpipe emissions continues to be confused with total end-to-end lifecycle cleanliness. With the kind of investment this legislation could and should encourage – from the automotive industry and beyond – e-fuels could aid in the clean-up of all of the world’s oil burners, not just its cars.

Moreover, more must also be done by vehicle manufacturers – and manufacturing industries at large – to reduce carbon output in-process and in-production.

We are firm believers in electric power as the future of generic personal transportation – ‘white goods’ cars – for myriad reasons (reduced complexity, potential convenience, zero local emissions) but too few acknowledge that many EVs incur an emissions toll in production that isn’t ‘paid off’ before five figures of zero-emission miles, compared to average low-emission internal combustion-engined cars.

None of this refers either to the cleanliness (or variable lack thereof) of how we generate our electrical energy, or indeed the detrimental effect that increasing vehicle mass has on emissions and the environment.

There are many pieces of this puzzle, then, including the cars we already drive. To reference Wissing’s Tweet, technological neutrality – where ICE is part of the clean-up conversation, not excluded, and where all areas of our activity as a species are held to appropriate account – is an essential part of the pragmatist’s solution to this problem. This legislation is part of the real future, not the blinkered, short-sighted lobbyist bait we’ve seen so far.