The end of combustion engine cars in Europe could come sooner than expected. The Volvo car company announced on Tuesday that it will stop making diesel cars next year and switch to fully electric cars within six years. Czech Škodovka is also approaching similar commitments, which will shut down one production line in Mladá Boleslav for more than a year due to the transition to the production of electric cars.
More and more European carmakers are moving away from the production of cars with internal combustion engines, even faster than the European Union plans. She wants to ban their sale from 2035. However, existing cars that run on gasoline and diesel would, according to proposal people could drive even after this year.
The acceleration of the transition to electromobility was announced by the Volvo car company on Tuesday. “In a few months, the last diesel car will be produced, making our carmaker the first traditional one to take such a step,” said the Swedish company, which is owned by the Chinese parent company Geely Holding, in an official statement.
The company itself has already pledged to switch to fully electric car production by 2030 and to be a climate-neutral company in 2040, the agency added Reuters. This August, more than a third of Volvo’s production was electric or hybrid models. Diesel cars accounted for only 8.9% of their production in Europe last year. On the old continent, however, in recent years, according to experts, the interest in diesel cars has been continuously falling for other brands as well.
Diesel engines have been enjoying a decline in popularity since 2015, when the so-called Dieselgate case broke out in the Volkswagen concern. At that time, the German car manufacturer cheated by reporting the actual level of emissions. According to the latest data, distrust has also resulted in car manufacturers reducing the number of diesel models in their lineups, and this July sales of new diesel cars totaled only 14 percent.
According to motoring columnist Vladimír Rybecký, this was a very expected move on the part of Volvo and it is a clear trend of most European car manufacturers. “The goal after 2030 to produce only cars with an electric drive has recently been announced by several car companies. Regardless of the fact that the EU wants to ban the sale of diesel engines after 2035, a large number of car companies want to end it with an earlier date,” he confirmed.
However, the largest Czech car manufacturer Škoda, which is part of the Volkswagen concern, is intensively preparing for the transition to electric motors. Chairman of the board of directors of the car company Klaus Zellmer on Tuesday for the website Car show stated that in order to prepare for the production of cars with electric engines, one of the lines of the factory in Mladá Boleslav will be shut down. It now produces cars with petrol engines such as Fabia, Scala and Kamiq. Only electric cars should leave Mladá Boleslav. However, the plant in Kvasiny should continue to produce internal combustion cars.
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Škoda is already withdrawing from diesel models. “They only remained where they make sense, for example in company fleets, so only for example in the Octavia and Superb models are they still to be expected in the next generation,” clarifies executive director of AAA Auto Luboš Vorlík. According to him, the gradual phasing out of diesel may not have too great an effect on the price of cars in the coming years. “For now, they are being replaced by turbo-petrol units, which can provide similar performance and, in modern models, also consumption,” he added. According to him, dealers expect an increasing interest in used cars.
High price and Europe’s dependence on China
According to Rybecký, companies are increasingly being pressured by the European Union towards full electromobility, also due to the plan to reduce emissions. Greater sales of electric cars are evident in the market, where more than three-quarters of the cars sold are company cars. “Company customers quite logically switch to where it is advantageous for them and where they can obtain various discounts in large volumes. In addition, in many states there is a large financial support for electrically powered cars,” he added.
According to him, the big disadvantage of electromobility is still the high price of these car models, which will be unaffordable for most customers in the years to come. The catch is also the possible unavailability of important raw materials exported by China.
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“It’s a paradox. The vast majority of raw materials are imported from China, despite the fact that China does not mine them, it just secured them in advance in Africa and Latin America and imports them from there. Then he resells them to Europe. Such dependence will not be solvable for Europe in the near future,” points out Rybecký.
Britain, for example, is now considering postponing the end of the production of cars with internal combustion engines. According to the Prime Minister there, Rishi Sunak BBC will soon introduce steps that should soften the state’s previous decisions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Instead of 2030, the end of sales of cars with an internal combustion engine could start five years later.
The Union is preparing to fight with China over cheap electric cars (09/2023):
TN.cz
2023-09-20 17:59:00
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