According to Bloomberg, 50 companies including Volvo Cars, Rivian, Uber Technologies Inc. and IKEA of Sweden AB and Spain’s electric utility Iberdrola SA have urged the European Union to stick to its plan to ban the sale of new fuel cars from 2035 and said the auto industry needs clear policies in order to invest and work towards the EU’s goals.
Electrification is the biggest action the automotive industry can take to reduce its carbon footprint,” said Jim Rowan, CEO of Volvo Cars. It is crucial that the EU’s carbon emissions targets for 2035 are set in order to align all stakeholders in the electrification transition and ensure the competitiveness of electric vehicles in Europe.”
EU carbon targets have come under fire in recent months as car (and especially electric car) sales have slowed. Recently, Volkswagen Group considered closing a German plant for the first time, and Volvo Cars abandoned its goal of selling only purely electric cars by 2030. Auto industry lobby groups, however, have warned that automakers may face billions of euros in fines if they fail to meet their 2025 carbon reduction targets.
Over the past 30 years, only the transportation sector in Europe has continued to grow its carbon emissions. If the EU is to achieve its goal of reducing carbon emissions by 55% by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050, carbon emissions from the transportation sector must be reduced rapidly.
Advocates of the EU’s 2035 ban say the EU is lagging behind China in the production of electric vehicles, especially mass-market models, and must catch up. They argue that European automakers have been too slow to move to new technologies such as electric cars, instead continuing to rely on selling traditional vehicles.
Meanwhile, Italy has also stepped up pressure on the EU to revisit its carbon emissions targets. This month, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni slammed the EU’s ban on the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles after 2035 as a “self-destructive” policy, vowing to urge the EU to “rectify this choice”. Italy wants the EU to bring forward a review scheduled for 2026 to the beginning of next year and provide an exemption for biofuels.
However, some of Europe’s biggest automakers, such as Volkswagen Group, BMW Group and Stellantis, have remained silent on the EU’s fuel-car ban.