The European Union plans to introduce an absolute deadline after which all manufacturers will have to stop producing cars with internal combustion engines, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, quoted by Reuters and BTA.
Von der Layen said that despite the fact that a dozen European carmakers have already announced that they will switch to zero-emission cars in the period 2028-2035, a legally binding date is still needed.
“However, we need an end date after which all cars will have to be emission-free,” she said, without specifying a date.
“Otherwise, there will be uncertainty and we will not be able to achieve our goal of climate neutrality by 2050,” the EC president added.
On Wednesday, the EC will present its package of “Ready for 50” proposals, which, if adopted by the 27 member states, will direct the Union, the world’s third largest economy, towards achieving the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percentage from 1990 levels.
The presentation of the package will be followed by months of negotiations between EU members and the European Parliament, during which fierce lobbying is expected from the various industries concerned.
The raw forecast of the manufacturer
EU emissions rules, which will take effect in 2025, are likely to make electric cars more profitable than petrol cars, which will be a turning point for the car industry. This was stated by Volkswagen Executive Board member Thomas Ulbrich in an interview with The Financial Times, published on July 13.
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Volkswagen, the world’s second-largest carmaker, plans to invest $ 35 billion in electric vehicles as the German government seeks to accelerate the transition to less polluting cars.
Thomas Ulbrich, head of Volkswagen’s R&D division, said the new Euro 7 emissions standards would be a huge challenge for petrol vehicles, which will need more expensive technology to meet the new standards.
EU rules, expected to take effect around 2025, will require further technical improvements such as expensive emission reduction equipment for cars with internal combustion engines.
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Ulbrich’s forecasts are some of the harshest for the industry, which, with some exceptions, still makes more money selling traditional gasoline cars than electric ones.
The German Automobile Industry Association (VDA) has already expressed concerns about the Euro 7 requirements, claiming that they are five to ten times stricter than current standards.
A month ago, the industry organization warned that new EU emissions rules could lead to the loss of 215,000 jobs in the industry.
Volkswagen expects a third of its sales by 2025 to be electric cars and they will grow to 70 percent by the end of the decade.
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