The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Italy and Germany rebel and defend continuing to sell super-luxury cars even if they pollute

2023-03-07T15:30:47.863Z


Both countries support allowing the vehicles of the ultra-rich to continue polluting beyond 2035, blocking an EU rule.


The European Union approved at the beginning of the year that no more cars with combustion engines could be sold

on the continent

after January 1, 2035. The measure was approved by all the competent authorities.

Following the proposal of the European Commission, the European Parliament and the 27 governments of the bloc voted in favour.

Everything was done

in the absence of formal approval,

the signature of the ambassadors of the 27 in Brussels for it to be published in the Official Journal of the European Union.

This last step is a formality because it never occurs to anyone that an ambassador could oppose his government.

That period of weeks between the approval of the governments and the signing of the ambassadors

was used by the luxury automakers

to put pressure on them and

their lobbying had an effect

.

Luxury automakers lobbied, and their lobbying worked.

Photo: archive

Contrary to what their ministers had voted for,

the German and Italian ambassadors

informed the temporary presidency of the Council of the European Union, in the hands of Sweden until June 30, that they

could not sign

.

Swedish diplomacy

aborted the signing

sine die

.

The quasi-approved legislation says that automakers can continue selling cars with combustion engines until December 31, 2034. From then on, these cars can continue to circulate and be sold on the second-hand market, but new cars cannot be sold

.

Therefore, these companies will begin in the coming years

to stop developing new models

of combustion engines.

Community sources reported this weekend that luxury brands such as

Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini or Maserati

lobbied successfully and their governments stopped when their ministers had already voted in favor of the new rule.

Luxury brands like Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini or Maserati successfully lobbied and their governments.

Photo: EFE

In Italy,

the entire government seems to agree with these companies

.

Split in the German government


In Germany

it is more complex

.

The third leg of the coalition Executive, the liberals, defend the luxury automakers.

The first two, the social democrat and the environmentalist, want the ban to be approved.

Those luxury brands

demand an exception

.

They want that from 2035 it will be possible to continue selling cars with combustion engines that use the fuels that their marketing calls

e-fuels

or

synthetic electrofuels

, which are fuels created

without oil as a raw material

but that

do generate polluting emissions

when used in a car engine.

Its producers claim that

its climate impact is neutral

.

His explanation ensures that they are created by combining captured carbon dioxide with hydrogen extracted from water in a process for which they promise to use electricity from renewable sources.

This is how they create that fuel.

But when it is used in a car it emits

polluting carbon dioxide

.

They say that having used carbon dioxide in its production makes it climate neutral.

The method has been around since 1925

and was used by the Nazi military industry to create liquid fuels from coal during World War II

when it was almost out of oil

.

Formula 1 will use them in its cars from 2026

to make believe that it participates in the energy transition

.

And to serve luxury car brands to promote those fuels.

Mercedes and BMW, against

The vast majority of European automakers, also those that produce some cars close to or greater than 100,000 euros and that have models that can be even more expensive than a Porsche or a Maserati, brands like Mercedes-Benz or BMW, believe that

the

exception It is a mistake because it sends a bad signal to the industry, which is already fully involved in the development of the next generations of electric cars.

Those who reject the exception also remember that these synthetic fuels

would be more expensive than the traditional ones

and would be far from the reach of anyone, although it does not seem that it is the criterion that whoever buys a Ferrari will take into account in the first place.

But that buyer of a Ferrari could ask himself if he would buy that car

if it no longer had the characteristic engine noise

that its models have today.

Electric motors

are much quieter

.

In addition, the industry ensures that by 2035 the production capacity of synthetic fuels in Europe could reach 2% of the cars if the number of cars remains stable in the next 12 years.

Brussels, special for

Clarín

look too

Why is Europe increasingly dependent on China?

Finland overwhelmingly approved NATO membership and ends decades of military neutrality

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2023-03-07

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-19T18:30:46.185Z

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.