Europe’s industry is being squeezed out of a globally important market by European politicians.
A worldwide ban on internal combustion vehicles is moving inexorably and ever faster. This impression can be gained by following the published opinion in Europe. At the 2021 World Climate Conference in Glasgow, for example, it was reported that 24 countries were planning to end the sale of gasoline and diesel cars by 2035.
Outside Europe, meanwhile, the trend toward electromobility was not unbroken even then. Two years earlier, the think tank Niti Aayog had predicted that the last car with an internal combustion engine would be registered in India in 2030. By 2020, there should be 6 to 7 million electric and hybrid vehicles on the roads.
These lofty plans were shattered by reality. On November 23, 2021, the Indian news channel ZEENEWS reported:
„Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari has said that government is not planning to stop registration of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, including diesel and petrol fuelled vehicles …“
In India, there will be no ban on internal combustion vehicles for the foreseeable future.
What is the situation in the USA?
Gina McCarthy is the White House’s National Climate Advisor. At a recent auto show in Washington, she gave a clear rejection to an end date for internal combustion vehicles when asked:
„‚We’re not setting arbitrary standards for the future.‘ And she added, ‚We don’t dictate in the U.S. what the outcome has to be, but we support the best and brightest innovations that are out there.'“
There will be no ban on internal combustion vehicles in the U.S. either.*
What is China planning?
FOCUS reported in January of this year:
„While Germany promotes e-cars at all costs, China pulls the subsidy plug.“
In China, e-car subsidies will expire completely at the end of 2022. Although an electric quota is prescribed for 2025, it is only a moderate 20% – including hybrids.
There is no talk of a ban on combustion cars in China.
In other regions and even continents, there is not even any government sponsorship of electromobility, let alone a ban on conventional drive systems. This applies to Eastern Europe, Russia, Africa, South America and Australia, among others.
The ban on internal combustion engines announced only for Europe will have unforeseeable negative consequences for national economies. For decades, the European automotive industry’s knowledge lead had proved unassailable to Chinese manufacturers. With the closure of the development departments in Europe, the know-how is migrating. The cars with combustion engines that continue to be in demand by the rest of the world will be developed and produced outside Europe. This solo action of the European Commission against the rest of the world endangers about 500,000 well-paid jobs.
In addition, billions of taxpayers‘ money are wasted, which are missing in the financing of measures that make sense for the environment.
The fixation on the e-car is an aberration on the part of German and European politicians – advised by quacks and legitimized by opportunistic scientists who are more interested in acquiring government-funded project contracts for their institutes than in enlightening people about the realities of the energy transition.
The Indian transport minister had also been subjected to a barrage of propaganda. The aforementioned think tank, for example, had merely been thinking about how to quickly attract more e-car buyers:
„According to Niti Aayog, the barriers to wider adoption of electric vehicles are in the areas of consumer perception, battery efficiency, range, speed of electric vehicles, charging time, creation of charging infrastructure, battery recycling and technology development. The most important component – the lithium-ion battery – is very expensive in the country, as the lack of domestic manufacturing makes the price of electric cars very high.“
They had not addressed the predominantly fossil-fuel power generation. Yet two-thirds of India’s electricity is supplied by coal-fired power plants.
In Germany, coal accounts for about 30%. Unfortunately, it is precisely these (in contrast to PV systems and wind turbines) controllable power plants that supply the electricity for additional consumers such as e-cars. The advocates of electromobility know this very well. In 2018, for example, VW CEO Herbert Diess was quoted in the trade journal „Automobil Produktion“ with these remarkable words:
„‚Because the truth is, you’re not converting to electric, you’re converting to coal-fired. And if you then run on coal-fired electricity, e-mobility really becomes madness.’… It doesn’t make sense to put electric cars on the road if the electricity for them comes from coal: ‚Then we’ll be running on coal instead of oil and producing more CO2 than we do today.'“
Unlike his European counterparts, the Indian transport minister seems to have understood that electric cars do nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, he probably had the social issue in mind when making his decision: Electric cars are much more expensive. Individual mobility would be made more difficult or even impossible for low-income earners.
This is precisely the program in Europe. A commissioned study by the Wuppertal Institute for Greenpeace gives an idea of the targets that guide the EU’s current transport policy:
„In the year 2035 … motorization nationwide averages 200 passenger cars per 1,000 inhabitants. In terms of cities, this corresponds to a motorization rate of 154 registered passenger cars on average.“
In 2020, there were 569 cars per 1000 inhabitants in Germany. By 2035, three out of four drivers will have to give up their vehicles.
Where electromobility is to be enforced by force of law and consumers are to be deprived of their freedom of choice, the real goal is to get the common people out of the habit of driving. It is questionable whether the EU countries that are less spoiled by prosperity will go along with this course.
*) In California, there are still plans for a ban. However, these are based on a fragile legal foundation (a decades-old special law that was nearly nullified under the Trump administration).
Image source: https://www.pexels.com/de-de/foto/architektur-verlassene-gebaude-verlassenen-fabrik-7599198/
Der Elektroauto-Schwindel 