Europe backtracks on ban of new combustion engine cars, in setback to tackling climate change

4 comments

1. Plans to ban the sale of new combustion engine cars in the European Union by 2035 [have been thrown into turmoil](https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/16/business/eu-combustion-engine-ban-changed-intl?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=missions&utm_source=reddit) after pressure from car manufacturers.

   On Tuesday, the European Commission proposed applying the ban, approved in 2023, to only 90% of vehicles, down from 100%. This means the remaining 10% of new cars made after 2035 could still be plug-in hybrid vehicles or those with internal combustion engines.

   The move, unveiled by the EU’s executive arm alongside other measures to support the bloc’s car industry, represents a setback for tackling climate change, although the commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, said Europe remains “at the forefront of the global clean transition.”

   “From 2035 onwards, carmakers will need to comply with a 90% tailpipe emissions reduction target, while the remaining 10% emissions will need to be compensated through the use of low-carbon steel … or from e-fuels and biofuels,” the European Commission said in a statement.

   The proposal is likely to be approved by European lawmakers. Prior to the announcement, Reuters reported that Manfred Weber, president of the EPP, the largest party in the European Parliament, said the EU was planning to scrap the ban and indicated that he supported the new plan.

   “The European Commission will be putting forward a clear proposal to abolish the ban on combustion engines. … It was a serious industrial policy mistake,” he said.

2. The economics just aren’t there to ban them, same as here in Canada.  You can’t just ban combustion engines if you haven’t successfully laid the ground for massive EV production to replace them, and we’re just not there yet. 

   A pivot to an electric vehicle economy and national grid capable of supporting it requires major investment in *building the infrastructure* and making it easier to build new factories and generate power in a way that a lot of environmentally minded leaders, like environment minister Stephen Guilbeault in Canada and the Greens in Germany, have actively blocked. They took a purely restrictive approach (e.g. Germany reducing its energy production by closing nuclear plants) that has failed dismally. 

   How would a ban or an EV mandate even play out? European and Canadian manufacturers are in the background saying that they *physically can’t* meet EV production targets, so all a combustion engine ban would do is cause plant closures and the loss of tens of thousands of jobs, followed by huge spike in EV prices as they suddenly become the only car people are allowed to buy and demand outstrips supply. 

3. Saw this coming unfortunately. It was pretty ambitious.

4. We’ve gone through some back and forth on that in the last decade – give it another election cycle and some reminders from mother nature that there is no negotiating with physics and we should be back on track.

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