The European Union has agreed to make an exception for synthetic fuels in its proposed 2035 ban on the sale of new combustion-engine cars. for him , the bloc reached an agreement with Germany on Saturday to allow automakers to sell new ICE cars after 2035, as long as those vehicles run only on climate-neutral fuels. The agreement ends a dispute that had threatened to sink the EU’s climate change policy. In early March, the European Parliament that would have codified the proposed ban after Germany, with , said it would not support the mandate without an exemption for synthetic fuels.
We have reached an agreement with Germany on the future use of electronic fuels in cars.
We will now work to get CO2 standards for cars adopted as soon as possible, and the Commission will quickly follow up with the legal steps needed to implement recital 11.
— Frans Timmermans (@TimmermansEU) March 25, 2023
“We have reached an agreement with Germany on the future use of e-fuels in cars”, Frans Timmermans, Executive Vice President of the European Green Deal, . “We will work now to have CO2 standards adopted for car regulation as soon as possible.” The environmental group Greenpeace criticized the agreement. “This lazy commitment undermines climate protection in transport and harms Europe,” the organization wrote in a statement.
As , manufacturing synthetic fuels consumes a lot of energy. Plus, without direct air capture technology, e-fuel cars produce nearly as many greenhouse emissions as their conventional ICE counterparts. according to one Published ahead of Saturday’s announcement, an exclusion of synthetic fuels could result in up to 46 million fewer cumulative EV sales in Europe by 2050 “without providing any additional CO2 savings.” It is also worth noting that no company is . That’s an important point because e-fuels are unlikely to save European drivers money. By 2030, estimates that the average driver in the EU will pay €782 a year more to fill up their car with synthetic fuel than with conventional gas.
