Pomegranate and the Berlin join the European automotive industry and call on the EU to to relax CO2 emissions standards for cars, as the bloc aims to end the sale of new petrol and diesel models by 2035.
Italy and Germany are rallying support from other EU members for a call to relax EU targets to cut CO2 emissions from cars and review a 2035 ban on the sale of petrol and diesel models.
After all, it is now “certain” that the ban – in effect, a zero limit on tailpipe emissions – cannot be achieved. The two countries plan to propose at an EU Council summit on Thursday that a review clause in the legislation be approved from late 2026 to early 2025, Italian Industry Minister Adolfo Urso said.
“We are bankrupt”
Echoing recent warnings from manufacturers, Urso said the European car industry had “collapsed” and predicted “tens of thousands” of job losses in the sector unless the EU changed course.
The EU had two options, the Italian minister said: first, maintain the target and create the conditions that would allow the auto industry to reach it, or “if we cannot do all this, we will just have to… postpone the targets,” he said.
Meloni has already called the 2035 ban “ideological madness” and just days after the call from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA), which reacted to the drop in sales electric cars last week, when they went public calling for a delay in implementing stricter emissions limits.
The influential Brussels-based group – whose members include BMW, Ford, Renault, Volkswagen and Volvo – warned on August 19 that new car registrations fell to fewer than 644,000 in August, a drop of more than 18% compared with the same month in 2023. Electric cars saw the biggest proportional decline, with their market share falling by almost a third from 21% last year.
“We lack critical conditions to achieve the necessary momentum in the production and adoption of zero-emission vehicles: hydrogen charging and refueling infrastructure, as well as a competitive manufacturing environment, affordable green energy, tax and purchasing incentives, and a secure supply of raw materials, materials, hydrogen and batteries,” the ACEA board said.
Carmakers currently have to ensure that emissions from all cars they sell in a given year do not exceed an average of 115.1g per kilometre, and the limit is set to fall to 93.6g next year – a figure that will be harder to achieve as a result. Electric vehicle sales are falling in a growing market dominated by larger SUV models.
Call for measures and reactions
Faced with what it called the “daunting prospect… of multi-billion-dollar fines” next year, ACEA urged the EU to implement “urgent relief measures”. However, the European Commission appears to believe that the blame for its predicament lies, at least in part, with the industry itself.
“We still have 15 months of car sales ahead of us and the industry has time… to meet its targets,” a Commission spokesperson told reporters on Tuesday. “It is also worth remembering that the 2025 target was agreed in 2019 and… we have designed these policies in a way that gives the industry time to adapt.”
Further emissions reduction deadlines approved last year mean that only cars and trucks that emit no CO2 will be allowed to be sold in the EU from 2035 – a de facto ban on petrol and diesel models.
The automotive industry lobby also wants this review, and for heavy goods vehicles. Industrial sectors, from generators to battery manufacturers, which will benefit from the rapid electrification of the European energy system, are lobbying hard for the EU to meet its current targets.
Source: Euronews