The European Commission unveiled a plan on Tuesday to drop the EU’s effective ban on new combustion-engine cars from 2035 after pressure from the region’s auto sector, marking the bloc’s biggest retreat from its green policies in recent years.
The move, which still needs approval from EU governments and the European Parliament, would allow continued sales of some non-electric vehicles. Carmakers in regional industrial powerhouse Germany and in Italy had sought easing of the rules.
The EU executive appears to have bowed to calls from carmakers to keep selling plug-in hybrids and range extenders that burn fuel as they struggle to compete against Tesla, opens new tab and Chinese electric vehicle makers.
The great thing is that it won’t matter. EVs are going to become extremely cheaper and more efficient, making them the clear choice over the next couple years.
Cheaper for the industry to manufacture, certainly. Cheaper for the consumer to purchase, I have my suspicions.
I would love to see a return to smaller cars - sedans even - but the shareholders might not like lower profits per unit, so I’m not sure we’re going to see prices plateau let alone decline.
I don’t drive but I’d like to see a return to cars that aren’t Orwellian spying devices.
Cheaper for the consumer to purchase, I have my suspicions.
Why would it be cheaper to produce, but more expensive to purchase? Because of bullshit rules that will not be long lived.
I wish I could share in your optimism.
They’re already very cheap as long as you only want two wheels and aren’t fussed about having a roof.
Yeah, this whole thing sounds a lot like a section of horse-drawn carriage industry going down the route of committing suicide by using crooked politicians to try and stop the march of evolution via legislation rather that the route of adapting to an unstoppable change and thus surviving.
In 20 years time most of the companies pushing for this will be either be gone or become cottage shops and this shit will almost certainly also have negatively impacted the rest of the industry in Europe.
I think this is the difference between opening doors to the future vs closing doors to the past. When China funded EVs and battery research, they opened the door to the future. When the EU and US try to ban gas engines, they are trying to close the door to the past. Guess which one works.
Yeah, EVs will naturally take over the market as they become more desirable/affordable. Meanwhile, if anything, banning ICE cars will make personal cars even more of a luxury.
Why would it be more of a luxury? Fuel and maintenance should be cheaper, and with proper investments the cars should be cheaper as well. A lot of the battery research right now is showing batteries that could last say 1,000,000 miles. If you get decent standards for such, you could have parents getting a new car and moving their old battery into a cheap EV for their teenager. If it had 200,000 miles on it, they can keep moving it to their next vehicle, and next vehicle if they keep wanting to get new features. The average American drives 14,000 miles a year. In theory they can pass that battery down to their teenager as well, but at that point it’s probably better to just recycle it or use it as a backup generator for the home.
Making repairable, recyclable, reusable batteries takes one of the largest costs down by a long shot.
Notre; Obviously batteries don’t last miles, but for sake of this discussion it made sense to put it this way
Pretty much everything about an EV can be made to last a million miles. Electric motors are robust, they don’t wear out like ICE engines. No transmission to wear out. Suspension parts can be replaced. You’re pretty much down to rust.
I was thinking about the thing in terms of current purchase costs. Right now there’s a sizeable gap between prices of ICE cars and EVs in the same vehicle category.
That gap will of course get smaller over time.
We are going extinct.
We’re finally hitting the brakes…
Regarding environmental protection.
… Again
What reset? This sounds made up.
“Opens new tab” ? Is this written by AI?
No, it’s just an artifact of copying reuters
Opens new tab?
Okay, but give us better public transport options instead!
The chinese electric cars are dangerous and shit. Western ev car makers got way too greedy and wanted to recoup the investment way too fast, billing the customers. Evs are cheap to develop, expensive to produce and maintain. Infrastructure was not ready, electricity was not ready… it only makes sense.
It would only allow cars emitting 90%less vs 2021 level. It’s not much of a change and it leaves room for innovation. It’s not that bad.
Complete switch to electric will not happen until governments make it possible to essentially get one basic electric vehicle for pennies by trading your old ICE vehicle.
Otherwise guess what, the vast majority of people don’t have 30.000 to drop on a new buy just because maa environment. Saying that, I am all in for a complete switch when there will be affordable cars that can do at least 700km on a charge.
The ban was only on the sale of new cars, not the existing cars on the road.
