Combustion engine exit with a back door

Combustion engine exit with a back door

The EU environment ministers struggled for a long time until they found a surprising compromise at 3 a.m. on Wednesday this week: New cars with combustion engines should be banned in the EU from 2035 - but drives using synthetic fuels will remain permitted.

This responded to a demand from the German FDP. The party and its Finance Minister Christian Lindner had insisted that combustion cars that run on eFuels could also be registered after 2035. On the one hand, these synthetic fuels are a way to continue to refuel traditional combustion engines, but on the other hand, according to experts, they are expensive to produce and ineffective.

The European Parliament submitted a proposal at the beginning of June and agreed to a complete ban on new combustion engine cars from 2035. Background: Around 20 percent of EU CO₂-Emissions arise from road traffic. From 2035, the so-called fleet limits for cars are expected to fall to zero. These limits tell car manufacturers how much CO₂ the vehicles they produce are allowed to emit emissions during operation. By 2030, climate-damaging greenhouse gas emissions are expected to fall by 55 percent compared to 1990. The Union should become climate neutral by 2050.

The reactions to the compromise that has now been negotiated at the level of the environment ministers were varied. Numerous experts and commentators were critical, describing the compromise as discouraged and instead calling for a clear ban on combustion engines as a clear signal. The Combustor is a discontinued model - even the FDP will not change anything about it, is the tenor. And even the auto industry has now accepted this and understood it. So why this lazy compromise? It is repeatedly pointed out that e-fuels are inefficient.

“Car pope” Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, head of the Center Automotive Research (CAR), believes that openness to technology would slow down progress in this case. “The argument comes from the eternally yesterday and the oil companies to stop change,” he tells ntv.de. Synthetic fuels are far too expensive for cars, and their energy balance is “horrible” compared to electric cars. No important car manufacturer would still be working on the combustion engine like the professor.

But there are also opposing voices who welcome precisely this openness to technology. Frank Schwope, auto analyst at Nord-LB, thinks this is generally a good thing because, as he told the German media, you never know in which direction something will develop. However, he also says that synthetic fuels will not go beyond a niche existence. Because they are “damn expensive” and won’t be able to compete with electricity prices even in ten years.

In the run-up to the EU Council, ARBÖ General Secretary Gerald Kumnig expressed his concerns about a strict ban on combustion engines, as decided by the EU Parliament: "Electric cars will be an important building block in the climate-neutral mobility mix in the future. But anyone who is really serious about climate and environmental protection must also consider the more than 5 million diesel and petrol vehicles that are currently on Austria's roads. The use of “Climate-neutral fuels would make it possible to achieve the mandatory climate goals,” said Kumnig in a press release. The European Parliament's decision is a further step away from individual mobility as is possible today.

For the ARBÖ, it is therefore the wrong approach to rely exclusively on electric drives. "Even if from now on all new registrations in Austria were exclusively electric cars, with around 250,000 sales per year, it would take more than 20 years until motorized individual transport would be emission-free. However, only if each new sale simultaneously replaces an 'old' combustion vehicle. However, the legislature does not have this time, which is why it is to be feared that there will be greater cuts and sooner or later combustion engines will no longer be allowed to be used at all," says Gerald Kumnig continues.

A strict ban on internal combustion engines from 2035 would mean a failure of the climate goals. Openness to technology is the only viable path. The ARBÖ therefore hopes that the EU Council will make a sensible decision for people and environmental protection. Only technological openness and the joint use of electricity, hydrogen, biofuels and synthetic fuels will ensure people's mobility and make the environment cleaner. Now at least a small part of this demand has been met for the time being.

Of course, the last word has not yet been spoken: After all, a final compromise still has to be negotiated with the EU Parliament.