How realistic is a ban on new gas and diesel vehicles?

FRANKFURT Ban the sale of gasoline and diesel cars by a deadline — 2040, 2030, even 2025. More and more governments are proposing just that.

But how seriously can such deadlines be taken?

The issue of how to phase out polluting traditional engines has been pushed to the forefront by scandals and crises. First Volkswagen’s admission to cheating on U.S. diesel emissions tests, and more recently a push by cities in Germany and elsewhere to ban diesels to make the air cleaner.

The political desire to switch to get rid of traditional engines, however, runs into a number hurdles in the real world. More recharging stations need to be set up globally, at a potentially high cost. And millions of jobs depend on the production of internal combustion engines, making the decision politically difficult in many places.

“I think there’s a majority, especially in cities, who say ‘we need change,”’ says Dieter Janecek, a member of Germany’s Green party who is campaigning for reelection in the national poll Sept. 24 on his party’s official call for an end to new gas and diesel sales by 2030.

He is running from Bavaria, home to auto giant BMW. Yet he thinks the call to phase out traditional engines is a winner. Janecek, 41, says that many people are “skeptical of the internal combustion engine, because they have to live with the consequences and the emissions.” That’s particularly true of urbanites — more than half the residents of Munich’s innermost neighbourhoods don’t even own a car. And it is in cities where the pollution issue is most pressing.

A lot would have to happen before such a big move happens, however.

There aren’t enough public fastcharging stations that can enable longer trips with all-electric cars. Experts say electrics could start to beat gas and diesel on cost and convenience by the mid-2020s as battery range and infrastructure improve.

Janecek concedes that “yes, it’s very ambitious. On the other hand, there are countries like Norway that want to move ahead faster. I am convinced it will happen.”

And then there is the impact on those who make gas and diesel engines.

Banning internal combustion engines from 2030 would affect more than 600,000 jobs in Germany directly or indirectly, or 10 per cent of the nation’s workforce, according to a study commissioned by the German Association of the Automotive Industry.

That may be why the dates touted by governments to end the sale of traditional engines look more like soft targets than drop-dead dates.

Norway has aggressively promoted electrics, but even there the proposed elimination of gas and diesel except for hybrids by 2025 is a goal to be achieved, not a fixed date for a ban. France and Britain are looking at 2040 — so far ahead that the politicians involved will no longer be around and technology will have changed in ways that are hard to predict. The former Netherlands cabinet proposed all electrics by 2035, but a new government will have to take the final decision. Carmaker Volvo said in July that all its models will have an electric motor from 2019 onward. However, many of those cars will be hybrids, which also have an internal combustion engine and are regarded as a halfway house to emissions-free driving.

Still, soft goals can have serious impact; Norway reached its target of 50,000 electrics in 2015, three years ahead of schedule.