Into the future with the combustion engine?
I where!
Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder in the BMW development center in Unterschleißheim
Photo: Matthias Balk / dpa
Bavaria is the land of BMW and Audi - in this respect, the move by Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) is surprising: At the online party conference of the Christian Socialists, he called for a ban on cars with internal combustion engines based on the Californian model.
He referred to the year 2035, for which the US state is aiming to phase out the technology.
"I am very much in favor of us setting an end date," said Söder.
"What it was like in California seems like a very good date for that."
This would then be a contribution to show "when the fossil fuel age is coming to an end".
Literally, however, Söder also spoke of the fact that "fossil burners with fossil fuels" should no longer be approved after a certain date.
With this, he has rhetorically left a back door open for himself: Combustion engines can also be operated with non-fossil fuels, such as synthetic fuels.
These arise from water and carbon dioxide.
Signal to the Greens
A lot of electricity is required for their production.
They are therefore currently not considered to be competitive.
Most manufacturers rely on battery-powered electric cars.
The potential Union Chancellor candidate Söder is approaching the Greens, a possible coalition partner of the Union after the federal election in 2021. The Greens have been calling for an exit from the internal combustion engine for some time.
In the negotiations for a possible coalition between the Union, FDP and Greens at federal level, the parties (not only) on this issue were still far apart in 2017.
The Greens initially asked for the end date to be 2030, but abandoned this goal in the course of the negotiations.
How credible is the advance?
According to the European Commission, the EU should be climate-neutral by 2050 at the latest, i.e. no more net CO2 emissions.
In order to achieve this goal in the transport sector, only zero-emission cars should be sold for many years.
Söder himself had already called for the exit from the internal combustion engine in 2007 - for 2020. In this respect, the CSU boss will now have to be asked how serious he is this time.
Especially since Söder is demanding the opposite in the short term: for a transitional period and in view of the corona crisis, he renewed his demand for a car purchase bonus or similar help for the most modern combustion engines: An incentive system, a recycling bonus or an exchange voucher that you can buy in a few years when you buy an even more modern car is needed could use.
Icon: The mirror
nis / dpa
