The EU has scrapped its 2035 sales ban on new combustion cars, a senior lawmaker has said.
While yet to be officially announced, Manfred Weber – president of the EPP, the European Parliament’s largest party – told German newspaper Bild that the plans were “off the table”.
In its place, flexible emission reduction rules will be implemented, he said: "For new registrations from 2035 onwards, a 90% reduction in CO2 emissions will now be mandatory for car manufacturers' fleet targets, instead of 100%."
He added that “there will also be no 100% target from 2040 onwards”, which means that “the technology ban on combustion engines is off the table”.
Weber told Bild that the EU’s decision “secures tens of thousands of industrial jobs", given that engines will continue to be produced for Europe, while also sending an “important signal to the entire automotive industry”.
This latest bombshell follows reports from earlier this week that EU lawmakers were looking at moving the 2035 ban to 2040.
This was to reflect new EV adoption forecasts and also due to lobbying from European governments and some of the industry’s biggest car makers, including Volkswagen, Renault, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Stellantis.
But Weber's comments all but confirm that the EU has instead adopted a more radical approach and binned the legislation it signed off in 2021, which would have effectively forced car makers to sell only electric vehicles.
The EU is expected to make the official announcement on Tuesday 16 December.
What this means for the UK – which was the first country to propose a sales ban on new ICE cars in 2020 – has yet to be announced.
The UK has a much higher EV adoption rate than the EU, albeit still below the government-mandated target (28% for 2025).
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The combustion engine was invented in the 19th century. The future of the automotive sector is electric. That has been obvious for a decade and why the Chinese Government has invested so hard in it. It's true that phasing out new combustion vehicles faster than might naturally happen is tough, but it's wrong to pillory EU and UK Governments for trying to make it happen. If you were a Government and saw a policy that could simultanoeusly cut deaths from poor air quality, make our towns and cities quieter and more pleasant, reduce our dependence on imported energy, allow lots of people to drive around for 2p a mile AND cut the biggest emitting sector to zero carbon over a decade, you'd pursue it too. Just a shame that a bunch of companies in Germany that are good at making spark plugs and cogs are trying to slow it down. Kodak was good at making something once too...
And we'd need more power stations to supply the grid as and when?,what about the lost Tax from fossil fuel where would that be recovered?
The world economy or Trump economy take your pick, has not helped,not all governments have gotten it right, trying to eradicate ICE cars asap was never going to work,2040? will this happen? I don't think so,a few things on this planet have got to change.
Now whilst the EU are in backtracking mood, perhaps they can rethink some of the mandatory active safety systems too....