The drive to have the sale of cars powered by petrol and diesel engines prohibited from 2035 appears to have stalled at the last moment as several countries within the EU objected to the proposal.
In early March, the Council of the European Union was due to rubberstamp the legislation as voted upon by the EU parliament on February 14, banning the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) from exhaust pipes.
EU ministers reject vote
The scene was therefore set for what amounted to the prohibition of the sale of cars powered by an internal combustion engine (ICE), yet 13 countries opposed the measure at a subsequent meeting at Strasbourg on March 13.
The European Council, where Sweden presently holds the chair, was therefore unable to ratify the legislation and duly noted that it will return to the subject at some later, unspecified, date.
The upshot of all this political manoeuvring is that for the time-being, the ban on the sale of such cars is dead in the water and passenger vehicles powered by ICE may be legally sold post-2035.
Gone but not forgotten
However, it cannot be confidently assumed that the threat to ICE-powered cars has disappeared completely, as Germany, which was one of the countries opposing the legislation, is looking to have it reworked to emphasise carbon neutrality rather than a complete absence of CO2 emissions.
Italy was another country which opposed the legislation seeking instead, a 90% reduction in emissions rather than a total ban, although it is not clear whether this is 90% per car or an overall reduction in carbon emissions from the country’s fleet of passenger cars.
Chancellor Karl Nehammer of Austria was another staunch opponent and has asked why would any country abandon the well established ICE to focus upon a single propulsion system?
France fights back
France, on the other hand, has made no bones about its position, pointing to its belief in a climate crisis and the ongoing pollution of its cities as the major factors in pushing for a ban.
Economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, has taken to the airwaves to declare his intention to fight for a reinstatement of the ban, noting that the legislation had taken two years to prepare and to delay it any further would be an environmental and economic mistake.
One major pressure group which lobbied to have the legislation changed was the eFuel Alliance which has soberly noted the developments and put forward suggestions as to how society might switch away from fossil fuelled cars to carbon neutral efuels.
Eco friendly synthetic diesel
Efuels are drop-in replacements for existing fuels, especially diesel, with no modifications required to either the vehicles or the infrastructure delivering the energy to the cars.
They are already being produced from food waste and may yet be synthesised from captured CO2 and hydrogen obtained through hydrolysis, a process which may be powered by renewable energy sources.
It is the advent of such alternatives that appears to lie behind opposition to an outright ban on the ICE; countries opposing the motion tend to favour a transition to carbon neutrality and it is this which the eFuel Alliance supports.
Simplicity thwarted
Although the Alliance may well support the continued use of liquid carbon based fuels, it does go on to cloud the issue by suggesting that new vehicles should run on efuels only, despite there being no mechanical reason why they cannot run on both.
This raises the prospect of having two distinct fleets on the road, one running on renewable fuels and the other on legacy fossil fuels, despite there being no practical reason why diesel-powered cars should not be able to run on both.
It adds a whole layer of complexity to a reasonably simple solution to the issue of reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and does little to make the transition attractive.
Diesel popularity
Quite how this reversal of the plans to abolish the ICE will affect the car market remains to be seen.
Within Ireland, there has been a steady decline in diesel sales over the past few years and purely electric vehicles have so far accounted for 15% of the registrations this year, yet that trend may now falter.
In Germany, a reduction in the subsidies on electric cars resulted in an 82% decline in sales over the first two months of 2023, clearly indicating that that if left to its own devices, the market will shun the EV in its present form.
Now that the threat of obsolescence has been lifted, or at least delayed, we might well see a resurgence of interest in ICE-powered cars as the manufacturers can no longer claim that the EU is legislating against them.
Clash of Titans
Volkswagen Audi announced two years ago, just as the legislation was starting to be framed, that it would stop producing EVs in Europe by 2035, the date eventually decided upon for the legislation to take affect.
The day after news of the EU postponement, the company announced a €180 billion investment plan for the next five years, which included €15 billion in battery facilities, an element of the plan that was qualified with the comment that this might change if “the market did not grow as expected”.
While Europe’s largest car maker might have been wrongfooted by a group headed by its own transport minister, Toyota took a broader view and at the same time as its arch rival was bailing out of the ICE, it was testifying to the US government that the world was not ready for electrification.
Quite which of these views will win out lies in the future; those pushing for an abandonment of the ICE have not enjoyed the success they had thought was theirs, not for the time-being anyway.
Diesel buyers can breath again
Meanwhile, car buyers in Ireland can go ahead and buy diesel models confident that the engine has been granted a reprieve, and with the growing use of synthetic fuel, it is likely to have a long future without any immediate attempts to phase it out completely.
This is important for rural communities where low-cost reliable transport is essential to their continued existence.
The promise of battery power is not one that appeals to people living away from towns. Long driving distances and slow refuelling does not endear EVs to many, a situation compounded by the need to upgrade the electric grid to cope with extra demand.
This latest move by EU ministers suggests that a little common sense might have dislodged the ideology that has so far been pushing the reluctant switch to battery-powered cars.