> Germany and Italy have blown apart an EU plan to ban internal combustion engines by 2035, as the European car industry’s heartlands mount a fightback against ambitious carbon goals.
>
> The two countries, the homes of Volkswagen, Fiat and Ferrari, are demanding exemptions for cars that run on synthetic fuels, potentially cushioning the blow for established industries.
>
> Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini described the delay as “a great signal” that rewarded efforts by his hard-right League party. “The voice of millions of Italians has been heard,” he wrote on Twitter.
>
> The setback for Brussels underlines the political clout of the car lobby across Europe and its fears that the green transition will be costly to jobs
>
> Porsche, part owned by VW, has long called for clean fuels that would allow it to sell its engine-powered sports cars for years to come, while Italy’s Ferrari has refused to set an end date for making supercars with engines.
>
> Germany’s Bosch, which supplies engine systems to carmakers all over the world and is regarded as a laggard in battery technology, has also lobbied for synthetic fuels to be considered “clean” technology by regulators.
>
> This week Rome swung behind the German ministry of transport, which had requested the special provisions for so-called e-fuelled cars, bowing to mounting political pressure at home.
>
> E-fuels, which are produced using electricity from renewable hydrogen and other gases, are often considered “carbon neutral”. They can be used in normal combustion engines, thus prolonging the life of Germany’s traditional car manufacturing industry, which makes up about a fifth of the country’s industrial revenues.
>
> “We need e-fuels because there is no alternative to operating our existing fleet in a climate-neutral manner,” Volker Wissing, the German transport minister, told ARD broadcaster.
>
> The change in position at such a late stage has prompted anger among other capitals, which see it as a threat to the EU’s credibility on green legislation. The law had been agreed among member states last year and was approved by the European parliament this month.
>
> The EU’s goals are part of a broader international push for net zero carbon emissions. The UK government has a still more ambitious target of banning sales of petrol and diesel cars from 2030, but concern has mounted in several countries about the impact on jobs of the transition.
>
> The chief executive of Ford said last year that manufacturing electric vehicles will require 40 per cent fewer workers than petrol-powered cars and trucks, largely because EVs contain fewer parts.
>
> Failure to adopt the curbs on combustion engines could severely hamper the EU’s effort to reach climate neutrality by 2050. Poland has already said it plans to vote against the law, and Bulgaria will abstain.
>
> Germany initially agreed to the rules on the condition that the European Commission launched a review within two years into whether cars that run on synthetic or “e-fuels” could be allowed after 2035.
>
> The debate has created deep divisions within German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party government.
>
> Wissing, whose pro-market Free Democrat party is staunchly in favour of the country’s car industry, on Thursday unexpectedly won the backing of the Green-run economics ministry.
>
> German Green MEP Michael Bloss said the postponement of the vote was “an embarrassment for Germany”, adding that it was “creating chaos, making ourselves completely untrustworthy and becoming a brake on climate protection”.
>
> The issue is expected to be raised by EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen when she attends a German government retreat at the weekend.
>
> One person familiar with the discussions said Berlin wanted the commission to “move” by presenting a compromise that would be acceptable to all three German coalition partners. But the person added that no proposal had been received so far.
>
> An EU official said: “It needs to be settled inside the German coalition. The commission is not the referee for internal coalition disputes.”
—
—
My two cents; some people seem emotionally attached to combustion engines and I get it, but think of the millions of Europeans who live next to a highway and the pollution wreaking havoc on our lungs.
This is the next evolution. Change is good.
Free markets have poisoned us with chemicals in our food and other products with terrible consequences. The living standard in Europe is comparatively high but we’re all dying from terrible diseases. The EU stepping in to bring these companies to heel is a net positive. With the future advances in technology there is no need for combustion engines.
Good news!
No surprise there.
The manufacturers of high end sports cars, supercars, hypercars and so on don’t like the idea of not having an ICE. To their customers the higher price of E-Fuels doesn’t really matter anyway.
And well the germans and italians have a significant share of that market.
To be fair two of the three parties of the German government support the ban the Greens and the Social Democrats, just the third party the libertarians block it.
I get that, most of european economies are built on auto industry and while Germany can still be doing as great as ever without combustion engines, Italy’s autovehicle industry is mostly known for supercars which just don’t work the same with electric engines
I’m really confused by the EU’s push for e-mobility.
It does not seem to go hand-in-hand answering questions like: where to charge, where to get cheap electricity and where to get raw materials for batteries?
I’m a proponent of e-mobility, but: e-cars are too expensive, electricity infrastructure (at least in my country) is weak and decidedly anti-e-car, our electricity sources are dubious at best, and Europe is not doing much to solve its dependence on foreign states in terms of basic raw materials…
Banning ICEs is just a bit backward…
Finally some sense from the EU..
Progress should come naturally, not by any force or law.
Good
Germany and Italy teaming up for a bad cause.
It’s not like we haven’t been here before.
Millions of years from now, extraterrestrial explorers will come across an extremely hot Earth mostly covered by water that has flooded what used to be a great civilization. Very little (if any) life will have survived.
It will tell the story of a once thriving human species and they will wonder what happened.
Ultimately they will likely conclude the following:
“Those idiots, despite all of this, destroyed themselves.”
How about focusing on better battery technology, more charging infrastructure as well as making all that energy that powers it clean.
And let us not forget developing and implementing technologies to make metal and concrete production cleaner.
Politicians have been captured by these polluting industries.
I’m not a fan of the choice but considering how other smaller countries use their veto I’m glad we use ours as well
Bans never achieve stated goals anyway, and in this case it is simply not needed. If they want people to move to EV they need to make EV affordable and most importantly they need to make related infrastructure so that EV owners are comfortable. Then the majority of people will move because it saves them money, and remaining holdouts will be too few to matter.
In my mind, good news for now. We don’t have any nuclear power plants active, and I don’t like the idea of turning a crank to get my car to drive for the next 200 metres every time I need to go around.
good.
Germany stalling on banning ICE engines, Germany stalling on closing lignite energy production, Germany trying to prevent others from deploying non-intermittent low CO2 (read: nuclear) energy production
Seems like a giant with adaptation anxiety; but climate change is real, and cannot wait.
2026 formula 1 start with 0% emission fuel. We need only time for this.
Hell yeah maybe we get to keep actual cars
Humanity will remain highly profitable right up until it goes extinct.
Good!
Even though I totally support EVs, I don’t like bureaucrats to decide what is good and bad. If they decide it’s only EVs and the EU manufacturers are not ready by then, you will get all sorts of disposable cars from China and that level of quality will become norm. If EVs will continue on the right path, nobody in their right mind will buy an ICE car.
And just as a heads up to everyone not from germany:
It’s not “germany” blocking this, it’s the smallest partner in the governing coalition.
Why do I mention this? Because you can bet your ass that 49€ railway ticket half of reddit was amazed by earlier today won’t be implemented either. Not because “germany” doesn’t want it but because that same minor party will block the funds for it, after previously agreeing to it. Just as they previously agreed to the ICE ban.
to be fair, its the nothing-but-choking-lobby-dicks party in germany who is blocking this
Nice
It’s ALWAYS fkn Germany…
Good
The problem with electric cars is that there will never be a cheap used market for them. With how batteries degrade, a used car is going to be a ticking time bomb for a massive expense of a battery replacement.
This is going to cut out a massive piece of the population out that can only afford a used car. Normally what needs to be done to them is fairly routine and not overly expensive when you are buying a used ICE vehicle. Change the fluids, check the brakes and replace as needed and carry on.
Unless we manage to create a new battery technology (which may very well happen and would be great) current batteries just make for a terrible second hand market for electric cars.
Fuck the ICE ban. So pointless
Honestly, it’s just stupid. It’s not Germany, it’s not even the government, nor a whole party. It’s one lobby-financed idiot from the liberal party, that somehow managed to get above 5%.
Tbf that Eu plan is idiotic at least it should focus 9n full hybridation 1st
In my heart i hope this plan never gets passed
EU still needs to promote EV infrastructure.
I’m really ashamed of my country
German here, personally i dont care what ultimately powers my car.
Financially tho i dont see myself driving an EV or whatever until 10-20 in the future when second/third/fourth hand prices have dropped way down.
I drive a BMW (obviously) E46 from 2001 which i got for 2400€ that i had to pay for for 2 years and i pray to god that it still works for years to come.
I wouldn’t even know how to finance another car in case this one breaks down. Im already knee deep in Credit that will take a while to pay off.
I am italian and I assure you our government always obeys to Stellantis/FCA. They planned to sell outdated tech cars for the next 500 years and electrification caught them off guard. They then told our government how to behave and this is the result. Also, there is an ongoing anti-electric car campaing that has reached unbelievable levels. Almost every news and papers and social page have their anti-electric car page, everyday.
I can’t speak for germans, but both the hydrogen and synthetic fuel lobbysts and german automakers need more time to survive. Money always win.
Good, the EU is shooting itself in the foot by banning the sale of ICEs.
Good, it’s a dumb idea that only the most privileged & wealthy can afford.
42 comments
> Germany and Italy have blown apart an EU plan to ban internal combustion engines by 2035, as the European car industry’s heartlands mount a fightback against ambitious carbon goals.
>
> The two countries, the homes of Volkswagen, Fiat and Ferrari, are demanding exemptions for cars that run on synthetic fuels, potentially cushioning the blow for established industries.
>
> Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini described the delay as “a great signal” that rewarded efforts by his hard-right League party. “The voice of millions of Italians has been heard,” he wrote on Twitter.
>
> The setback for Brussels underlines the political clout of the car lobby across Europe and its fears that the green transition will be costly to jobs
>
> Porsche, part owned by VW, has long called for clean fuels that would allow it to sell its engine-powered sports cars for years to come, while Italy’s Ferrari has refused to set an end date for making supercars with engines.
>
> Germany’s Bosch, which supplies engine systems to carmakers all over the world and is regarded as a laggard in battery technology, has also lobbied for synthetic fuels to be considered “clean” technology by regulators.
>
> This week Rome swung behind the German ministry of transport, which had requested the special provisions for so-called e-fuelled cars, bowing to mounting political pressure at home.
>
> E-fuels, which are produced using electricity from renewable hydrogen and other gases, are often considered “carbon neutral”. They can be used in normal combustion engines, thus prolonging the life of Germany’s traditional car manufacturing industry, which makes up about a fifth of the country’s industrial revenues.
>
> “We need e-fuels because there is no alternative to operating our existing fleet in a climate-neutral manner,” Volker Wissing, the German transport minister, told ARD broadcaster.
>
> The change in position at such a late stage has prompted anger among other capitals, which see it as a threat to the EU’s credibility on green legislation. The law had been agreed among member states last year and was approved by the European parliament this month.
>
> The EU’s goals are part of a broader international push for net zero carbon emissions. The UK government has a still more ambitious target of banning sales of petrol and diesel cars from 2030, but concern has mounted in several countries about the impact on jobs of the transition.
>
> The chief executive of Ford said last year that manufacturing electric vehicles will require 40 per cent fewer workers than petrol-powered cars and trucks, largely because EVs contain fewer parts.
>
> Failure to adopt the curbs on combustion engines could severely hamper the EU’s effort to reach climate neutrality by 2050. Poland has already said it plans to vote against the law, and Bulgaria will abstain.
>
> Germany initially agreed to the rules on the condition that the European Commission launched a review within two years into whether cars that run on synthetic or “e-fuels” could be allowed after 2035.
>
> The debate has created deep divisions within German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party government.
>
> Wissing, whose pro-market Free Democrat party is staunchly in favour of the country’s car industry, on Thursday unexpectedly won the backing of the Green-run economics ministry.
>
> German Green MEP Michael Bloss said the postponement of the vote was “an embarrassment for Germany”, adding that it was “creating chaos, making ourselves completely untrustworthy and becoming a brake on climate protection”.
>
> The issue is expected to be raised by EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen when she attends a German government retreat at the weekend.
>
> One person familiar with the discussions said Berlin wanted the commission to “move” by presenting a compromise that would be acceptable to all three German coalition partners. But the person added that no proposal had been received so far.
>
> An EU official said: “It needs to be settled inside the German coalition. The commission is not the referee for internal coalition disputes.”
—
—
My two cents; some people seem emotionally attached to combustion engines and I get it, but think of the millions of Europeans who live next to a highway and the pollution wreaking havoc on our lungs.
This is the next evolution. Change is good.
Free markets have poisoned us with chemicals in our food and other products with terrible consequences. The living standard in Europe is comparatively high but we’re all dying from terrible diseases. The EU stepping in to bring these companies to heel is a net positive. With the future advances in technology there is no need for combustion engines.
Good news!
No surprise there.
The manufacturers of high end sports cars, supercars, hypercars and so on don’t like the idea of not having an ICE. To their customers the higher price of E-Fuels doesn’t really matter anyway.
And well the germans and italians have a significant share of that market.
To be fair two of the three parties of the German government support the ban the Greens and the Social Democrats, just the third party the libertarians block it.
I get that, most of european economies are built on auto industry and while Germany can still be doing as great as ever without combustion engines, Italy’s autovehicle industry is mostly known for supercars which just don’t work the same with electric engines
I’m really confused by the EU’s push for e-mobility.
It does not seem to go hand-in-hand answering questions like: where to charge, where to get cheap electricity and where to get raw materials for batteries?
I’m a proponent of e-mobility, but: e-cars are too expensive, electricity infrastructure (at least in my country) is weak and decidedly anti-e-car, our electricity sources are dubious at best, and Europe is not doing much to solve its dependence on foreign states in terms of basic raw materials…
Banning ICEs is just a bit backward…
Finally some sense from the EU..
Progress should come naturally, not by any force or law.
Good
Germany and Italy teaming up for a bad cause.
It’s not like we haven’t been here before.
Millions of years from now, extraterrestrial explorers will come across an extremely hot Earth mostly covered by water that has flooded what used to be a great civilization. Very little (if any) life will have survived.
It will tell the story of a once thriving human species and they will wonder what happened.
Ultimately they will likely conclude the following:
“Those idiots, despite all of this, destroyed themselves.”
How about focusing on better battery technology, more charging infrastructure as well as making all that energy that powers it clean.
And let us not forget developing and implementing technologies to make metal and concrete production cleaner.
Politicians have been captured by these polluting industries.
I’m not a fan of the choice but considering how other smaller countries use their veto I’m glad we use ours as well
Bans never achieve stated goals anyway, and in this case it is simply not needed. If they want people to move to EV they need to make EV affordable and most importantly they need to make related infrastructure so that EV owners are comfortable. Then the majority of people will move because it saves them money, and remaining holdouts will be too few to matter.
In my mind, good news for now. We don’t have any nuclear power plants active, and I don’t like the idea of turning a crank to get my car to drive for the next 200 metres every time I need to go around.
good.
Germany stalling on banning ICE engines, Germany stalling on closing lignite energy production, Germany trying to prevent others from deploying non-intermittent low CO2 (read: nuclear) energy production
Seems like a giant with adaptation anxiety; but climate change is real, and cannot wait.
2026 formula 1 start with 0% emission fuel. We need only time for this.
Hell yeah maybe we get to keep actual cars
Humanity will remain highly profitable right up until it goes extinct.
Good!
Even though I totally support EVs, I don’t like bureaucrats to decide what is good and bad. If they decide it’s only EVs and the EU manufacturers are not ready by then, you will get all sorts of disposable cars from China and that level of quality will become norm. If EVs will continue on the right path, nobody in their right mind will buy an ICE car.
And just as a heads up to everyone not from germany:
It’s not “germany” blocking this, it’s the smallest partner in the governing coalition.
Why do I mention this? Because you can bet your ass that 49€ railway ticket half of reddit was amazed by earlier today won’t be implemented either. Not because “germany” doesn’t want it but because that same minor party will block the funds for it, after previously agreeing to it. Just as they previously agreed to the ICE ban.
to be fair, its the nothing-but-choking-lobby-dicks party in germany who is blocking this
Nice
It’s ALWAYS fkn Germany…
Good
The problem with electric cars is that there will never be a cheap used market for them. With how batteries degrade, a used car is going to be a ticking time bomb for a massive expense of a battery replacement.
This is going to cut out a massive piece of the population out that can only afford a used car. Normally what needs to be done to them is fairly routine and not overly expensive when you are buying a used ICE vehicle. Change the fluids, check the brakes and replace as needed and carry on.
Unless we manage to create a new battery technology (which may very well happen and would be great) current batteries just make for a terrible second hand market for electric cars.
Fuck the ICE ban. So pointless
Honestly, it’s just stupid. It’s not Germany, it’s not even the government, nor a whole party. It’s one lobby-financed idiot from the liberal party, that somehow managed to get above 5%.
Tbf that Eu plan is idiotic at least it should focus 9n full hybridation 1st
In my heart i hope this plan never gets passed
EU still needs to promote EV infrastructure.
I’m really ashamed of my country
German here, personally i dont care what ultimately powers my car.
Financially tho i dont see myself driving an EV or whatever until 10-20 in the future when second/third/fourth hand prices have dropped way down.
I drive a BMW (obviously) E46 from 2001 which i got for 2400€ that i had to pay for for 2 years and i pray to god that it still works for years to come.
I wouldn’t even know how to finance another car in case this one breaks down. Im already knee deep in Credit that will take a while to pay off.
Good
Shame on both 🙁
[I want this Europe back](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqYPU3MNqHw)
I am italian and I assure you our government always obeys to Stellantis/FCA. They planned to sell outdated tech cars for the next 500 years and electrification caught them off guard. They then told our government how to behave and this is the result. Also, there is an ongoing anti-electric car campaing that has reached unbelievable levels. Almost every news and papers and social page have their anti-electric car page, everyday.
I can’t speak for germans, but both the hydrogen and synthetic fuel lobbysts and german automakers need more time to survive. Money always win.
Good, the EU is shooting itself in the foot by banning the sale of ICEs.
Good, it’s a dumb idea that only the most privileged & wealthy can afford.