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Charging instead of refueling: Several EU countries are demanding an expiry date for new vehicles with internal combustion engines
Photo: Christoph Hardt / Future Image / imago images
Several EU countries have asked the EU Commission in a letter to name an exit date for the sale of new gasoline and diesel cars.
In addition, the states are in favor of a better charging infrastructure for emission-free transport and significantly stricter CO2 emission standards, as can be seen from the unofficial paper, the so-called non-paper, published by the diplomatic mission of the Netherlands in Brussels.
In addition, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Malta, Ireland, Lithuania and Luxembourg are named as senders.
"If you take the service life of a car into account, you have to stop approving new combustion vehicles around 2030 if you want to be CO2-neutral by 2050," said the Dutch Minister of Infrastructure, Stientje van Veldhoven, explaining the demand to "Bloomberg".
A sustainable transport sector is crucial for the success of the EU Commission's “Green Deal”, argue the states in their letter.
According to the letter, automakers are investing more and more in vehicles with low or no emissions, but change must be accelerated.
Several states and manufacturers are already planning to phase out
Several car manufacturers have already announced plans to phase out combustion technology.
From 2030, Volvo only wants to build purely electric cars.
"There is no longer a long-term future for cars with internal combustion engines," said Volvo's Chief Technology Officer Henrik Green, explaining the decision.
The Swedish brand is not alone in this decision.
Jaguar, Ford and General Motors have also announced that they will be saying goodbye to the internal combustion engine.
However, this step has been rare so far.
German manufacturers have so far held back in this regard, but the Volkswagen brand intends to focus more on electric cars in the future.
By 2030, 70 percent of total sales in Europe are to be made up of pure electric vehicles, thus doubling the previously planned rate for battery-electric vehicles of 35 percent.
In the USA and China, the brand aims to achieve an electrical share of more than 50 percent in the same period.
At the same time, several countries are already planning the end of the combustion engine, for example the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Ireland as early as 2030. The US state of California, after all, the largest car market in the USA, has given gasoline and diesel an expiry date.
From 2035 onwards, no new combustion cars will be allowed to be sold there.
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ene / dpa
