Germany Asks for Improbable Ban on Internal Combustion Engines by 2030
The German government has passed a resolution to ban the sale of internal combustion engines in the European Union by 2030.
Receiving bipartisan support in the German Bundesrat, the resolution calls on the EU Commission in Brussels to ensure only zero-emission passenger vehicles be approved for sale within the next fourteen years.
While the act has no direct legislative implications for Europe as a whole, German regulations could still undoubtedly influence and shape future automotive policies in the EU.
According to Forbes, citing a report in Germany’s Der Spiegel, the new resolution calls on the EU Commission to “review the current practices of taxation and dues with regard to a stimulation of emission-free mobility,” which could mean the Commission finding a way to incentivize electric vehicle purchases and tax diesel vehicles to make them much less appetizing.
Considering diesel accounts for roughly half of all new European passenger vehicles sold, banning the internal combustion engine won’t be an incredibly popular choice.
Statista (a German-based market research database) estimates most new car sales in Belgium, Spain, Italy, Austria, Sweden, Ireland, and France have been of the diesel variety since 2013. The European Automobile Manufactures Association pegs the fleet in Europe at 40.97-percent diesel versus 54.1-percent petrol.
However, plug-in vehicles only just surpassed a 1-percent share of the European passenger car market. And even as Volkswagen’s diesel emissions scandal winds its way through the courts, diesel sales remain strong in the Old Continent. To expect any single country — let alone the entire EU — to replace the internal combustion engine in under fourteen years may be nothing more than wishful thinking.
[Image: Ruben de Rijcke ( CC BY-SA 3.0), via Wikimedia Commons]
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I think BWM, Porsche, and Audi will have none of that!
Regardless of the relative signficance of the Bundesrat, it is a national body that got international attention with this. 14 years after computers were science fiction devices that took up rooms and rooms, and rockets were V2s and fireworks, men walked on the moon 14 years after that you could have had a primitive desktop computer. 14 after that you had a real desktop and maybe a laptop that could actually do useful work for you. And 14 years after that you can hold the computer power of Apollo program in the palm of your hand, have video calls with people in other countries at any time, and check on your retirement portfolio. No, I would be disappointed but not surpised if we IC engines are banned in another 14 years.