A looming British ban on the sale of new internal combustion engine cars was thrown into chaos on Tuesday after Brussels watered down its own restrictions amid opposition from the German auto industry. The Telegraph has more.
Experts and politicians warned that British rules due to take effect in 2030 are untenable following the European climbdown, which will allow internal combustion engines as long as they burn carbon-neutral petrol alternatives.
The European Union will now ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2035 but permit these so-called e-fuels following a backroom compromise forced on it by the German authorities and signed off on Tuesday night.
Sources suggested that Whitehall was considering following the Commission’s lead by also allowing an e-fuel exemption. British carmakers Aston Martin and McLaren are already understood to be examining e-fuels as an option for powering future models.
Critics of the Government’s Net Zero plans seized on the European Union’s decision as evidence that a total policy rethink is needed, while campaigners including Greenpeace have said that it could slow down electric vehicle adoption. …
The former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: “The 2030 deadline for the elimination of petrol and diesel engine cars in the U.K. is simply not achievable. Unless we delay, we hand a massive boost to the Chinese car manufacturers. They are already dominant.”
Britain is to ban the sale of new cars that run on petrol and diesel only in seven years’ time under plans drawn up by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
New hybrids will still be allowed until 2035, at which point the U.K. will only permit fully electric cars and other zero-emission [sic] vehicles, such as those which burn hydrogen.
The EU’s e-fuel exemption will allow a synthetic alternative to petrol which is made by mixing carbon dioxide captured from the air with hydrogen obtained by splitting water molecules using renewable energy.
This is expected to be far more expensive than petrol, meaning it will initially benefit high-end carmakers whose customers will not be put off by the costs involved.
However, Benedetto Vigna, the boss of Ferrari, said this week that he expects the price to fall in coming years and experts believe it could be the thin end of a wedge that would allow carmakers to focus on producing lower-cost e-fuels instead of expensive battery powered cars.
Andrew Graves, a car industry veteran and professor at the University of Bath, said: “I think it’s a very exciting technology that we’re looking at, so that we can not only use it for things like motorsport, but we can also more importantly use it for keeping existing vehicles on the road. I think there’s a lot of things that the Government needs to look at before it goes hell bent on just having a blanket ban on diesel or petrol.”
Mr Graves added that there is already a risk that not enough electric car chargers and battery-making plants will have been built when the ban takes effect – a problem that may worsen if carmakers sense it is being watered down. …
The Telegraph understands that the British Government is prepared to follow the EU’s lead, with the Department for Transport understood to be amenable towards synthetic fuels so long as the industry can prove that they will be carbon neutral. …
Greg Smith, a Tory MP who sits on the Transport Select Committee, said: “Groupthink has dictated battery electric to be the way forward for too long when we’re already seeing the technology fail and not develop at the pace people need. The 2030 ambition isn’t realistic in the first place and we need the innovators and the automotive companies to be given the time and space to produce a time and space and not just jump to the betamax that’s available now.”
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