European Union will not ban combustion engines?
The European coalition on banning the sale of internal combustion cars from 2035 is crumbling. A key vote on the issue was scheduled to take place on Tuesday, March 7, but Germany asked for a last-minute postponement.
The German Transport Minister Volker Wissing has made no secret of his opposition and is proposing that the European Commission adopt legislation to allow the use of biofuels. There are more and more voices in Europe that after 2035, different technologies should be used to reduce carbon emissions.
– We want climate-neutral mobility, and that means being open to all possible technologies,” Volker Wissing commented. The German transport minister – as well as representatives of the Italian government and some Central and Eastern European countries – believes that combustion engines could be used to burn climate-neutral synthetic fuels (e-petrol and e-diesel). The European Commission is not commenting on the proposals for now, but the very fact that the vote has been postponed at the last minute is something unprecedented in EU custom.
Car companies, including truck manufacturers, are prepared for different scenarios, but most of them also support the German proposals. At Porsche, they even assume that after 2035, cars will almost certainly be powered by electric engines, but also by combustion engines. As Michael Steiner, Porsche AG board member for development and research, stated , “E-fuels have enormous potential. There are currently more than 1.3 billion cars with internal combustion engines in the world, and many of them will be on the road for decades. E-fuels offer owners of existing cars a nearly carbon-neutral alternative.
