- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
The European Commission unveiled a plan on Tuesday to drop the EU’s effective ban on new combustion-engine cars from 2035 after pressure from the region’s auto sector, marking the bloc’s biggest retreat from its green policies in recent years.
The move, which still needs approval from EU governments and the European Parliament, would allow continued sales of some non-electric vehicles. Carmakers in regional industrial powerhouse Germany and in Italy had sought easing of the rules.
The EU executive appears to have bowed to calls from carmakers to keep selling plug-in hybrids and range extenders that burn fuel as they struggle to compete against Tesla, opens new tab and Chinese electric vehicle makers.
So from 2035 it was supposed to be possible to only sell cars with 100% reduction in CO2 emissions. They want to change it to 90% reduction and still allow to sell plug-in-hybrids which is bullshit because recent analysis of real life usage show that plug-in hybrids run on gas most of the time and are not nearly as efficient as estimated. They should focus on building charging infrastructure instead. German car industry is dying anyway.
In Madrid there are several car sharing services. One of them is a joint venture between a major oil company (Repsol) and Kia. I use them sometimes. I have never seen one charging, or used one with an electrical charge. They always run on the ICE engine.
I wonder how plug-in hybrids are that bad in terms of gas-to-electric ratio. Might need a proper source on that. Most usage should be from work-home travel, and that should be reachable with just electric power.
Maybe the solution is not simply to block hybrids, but to solve the reasons they don’t drive electric. This could be putting more chargers at home/workplace or something else entirely (idk what the analysis pointed out as reason)
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-hybrids-pollute-almost-as-much-as-petrol-cars-report-finds
“27% of driving was done in electric mode” - this is how. It doesn’t point at any reason for that. And yes, there may be a solution to this but we don’t know if it even exists. We should first try to make plug-ins more efficient and then consider excluding them from the ban. Of course this decision has nothing to do with efficiency, it’s just Germany desperately trying to save their weakening economy.
The thing is, if only 27% drive in electric mode, that indicates deeper problems. If it was possible for people to easily charge their vehicles, most would use electricity, it’s way cheaper. The fact they aren’t indicates that the infrastructure just isn’t there. Most people don’t live in the suburbs, and I don’t know for other countries but here like 70% of parking is done on the street or on open parking lots. Even in larger garages, I don’t think there’s a single one here with more than a token 4-5 charging stations. We have to first fix that before electric cars become viable for the majority of people. If this bans normal ICE cars but leaves plug-in hybrids I think that’s actually fine, since as infrastructure improves these cars will become more and more like full EVs.
That’s not the point. EU wanted to go for 100% reduction in CO2 emissions from cars sold after 2035. Now car manufacturers are pushing for 90% reduction because they failed to adapt in time. In reality there’s only 30% reduction in hybrids. Even if the infrastructure is there and we reach 90% of battery driving for plug-ins that’s still less than the initial plan. But there are no plans to actually achieve the 90% battery usage so it’s all bullshit. They simply want to keep selling gas engines and plug-in hybrids are just the latest lie they want to use to avoid the ban. The first lie was e-fuels but I guess they realized now this is not going to work.
They want to keep making money on polluting technology and it’s up to us to figure out how to create the infrastructure to make it less polluting. It’s plastic recycling all over again.