EU faces end of the diesel age
Cleaner cars spurred by VW scandal
European Union consumers may do as much as regulators to propel the the region’s cars into the electric age, says the EU’s industrial-policy chief.
European Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska said the EU has had a “breakthrough moment” since Volkswagen admitted in 2015 that it fitted diesel engines with software to cheat US checks on smog- causing discharges of nitrogen oxides (NOx).
“Diesel cars are finished,” Bienkowska said. “I think in several years they will completely disappear. This is the technology of the past.”
Europe is seeking to retain leadership in the worldwide market for passenger cars in the face of competition from the US, where Tesla is based, and China, which accounts for about half of electric-vehicle sales.
Volkswagen’s cheating, which led Germany to order an EU-wide recall of 8.5 million Volkswagen vehicles, pushed the world’s number one carmaker into a crisis and left policy makers in Europe scrambling to patch up regulatory holes that threatened a “clean-diesel” strategy dating to the 1990s.
The issue has been politically thorny in Europe because around half the region’s cars are powered by diesel, which causes more urban pollution than petrol while having less global-warming impact.
“People have realised that we will never have completely clean — with- out NOx — diesel cars,” said Bienkowska.
Last month, EU governments backed a revamp of the rules for authorising car models in the 28-nation bloc. The European Commission won the power to fine carmakers up to ¤ 30,000 ($50,000) per faulty car and order recalls.
The commission and industry are also working to spur the development in Europe of batteries for electric cars, including through financing. “We want to have the first batteries produced in Europe, but also the whole value chain,” Bienkowska said. “It’s the kind of a project that a single member state cannot afford.”
Individual European companies are doing their part too. Volkswagen, which aims to sell as many as 3 million all-electric cars annually by 2025, has awarded ¤ 40b in contracts to battery producers.
European electric-vehicle sales, now about 1.5 per cent of all new registrations on the continent, will rise to about 5 per cent in 2021 and take off from 2025, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
The EU policy to fight climate change may also play a role. A draft European law to tighten caps on car discharges of carbon dioxide offers incentives for carmakers to shift to electric vehicles.
In the meantime, Bienkowska must continue to tackle the haziness and headaches of the diesel age. She has stepped up legal threats against several EU countries, including Germany and Italy, for lax enforcement of the previously agreed European rules meant t o ensure carmakers heed limits on nitrogen oxides.
Bienkowska is also urging a number of EU nations, particularly in eastern Europe, to increase recalls of vehicles suspected of failing to meet NOx standards. At present, eight member countries have mandatory recalls in place.
“We have member states like Romania, Slovakia and Poland where the recall rate is extremely low,” she said. “We don’t want those parts of Europe to be full of old diesel cars.”
— Bloomberg
I think in several years [diesel cars] will completely disappear.
European Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska