Electric cars charge at a hub in central Milan on March 23. From 2035, all cars sold in the European Union will be zero-emission vehicles.
Gabriel Bouys/AFP via Getty Images
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Gabriel Bouys/AFP via Getty Images
Electric cars charge at a hub in central Milan on March 23. From 2035, all cars sold in the European Union will be zero-emission vehicles.
Gabriel Bouys/AFP via Getty Images
European Union member states approved a plan on Tuesday that would require all new cars sold in the EU to be zero-emission vehicles from 2035.
It is part of the EU’s plan to tackle climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and is more ambitious than similar efforts in the US. A quarter of the bloc’s emissions come from the transport sector, and 70% of that is road traffic.
“The direction of travel is clear: by 2035, new cars and vans must have zero emissions,” European Commission Executive Vice President Frans Timmermans said in a statement.
“The new rules on CO2 emissions from cars and vans are a key part of the European Green Deal and will be a major contribution to our goal of being climate neutral by 2050,” Timmermans added.
The plan also calls for average new car emissions to drop by 55% and average new van emissions to drop by 50% by 2030, compared to vehicle emissions in 2021.
There is an important caveat to the plan. The European Commission said it would establish an exemption for the continued sale of cars that run on e-fuels after 2035 at Germany’s request, according to Reuters. E-fuels are manufactured using captured CO2 emissions.
Poland opposed the new law, the BBC reported, and Italy, Bulgaria and Romania abstained from the vote.
U.S. efforts to phase out gas cars include future bans in several states
President Biden has said he supports the proliferation of electric vehicles, and in 2021 he signed an executive order aiming for half of all new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the US by 2030 to be zero-emission vehicles , including plug-in hybrids. .
However, several states have announced future bans on gas cars.
California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Washington have said they would ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles starting in 2035. Money reported
The switch from combustion engines to electric vehicles won’t be as easy as turning a key, experts say.
Some of the challenges of switching to zero-emission vehicles include the persistently high cost of electric cars, China’s dominance of the electric battery supply chain, and a lack of charging infrastructure.
