The European Union has recently made an announcement that they want zero-emission, climate-neutral new vehicles, including cars or vans- which means that without combustion engines running on diesel, petrol and natural gas. The following plan will be placed on the market and sold as of 2035.
The Environment Ministers of the 27 EU Member States came to a “historic” agreement on Wednesday morning in Luxembourg to drop the CO2 emissions of new cars in Europe to zero.
As per Julia Poliscanova, Senior Director for vehicles and e-mobility at the European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E), “European governments have taken the historic decision to end the sale of polluting cars. Transport is the largest source of emissions as well as vehicles are the biggest part of the issue.”
At the same time, the decision to end sales of polluting cars and vans by 2035 amounts to an obligation for all-electric engines. Whether hybrid vehicles, which combine a combustion engine and an electric motor, can still be sold will only be decided in 2026.
Whereas, at the request of some of the nations, such as Germany and Italy, the Member States also agreed to consider giving the green light to alternative technologies, such as synthetic fuels, in the coming times – if it can be another way that greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced entirely. These would be so-called electrofuels (e-fuels) or biofuels, which are produced using renewable energy.
For manufacturers, the major advantage is that synthetic fuels can be used in existing combustion engines. However, cars powered by e-fuels emit significantly more CO2 than battery electric vehicles over their lifecycle, as well as pump out as much toxic NOx emissions as petrol vehicles.
