The EU is scrapping its plan to ban all sales of new combustion-engine cars in a decade, following pressure from big automakers and some member states.
The European Commission, which proposes regulations for the 27-country bloc, announced some breathing room that effectively removes the previous hard target — where all new sales had to be zero-emission vehicles — and allows plug-in hybrids, hybrids and even combustion-engine vehicles to continue to be sold beyond 2035.
“In practice, 90 per cent of vehicles will be electric,” said European climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra at a news conference in Strasbourg, France. “For the remaining 10 per cent, we allow flexibility.”
The proposal, which still requires approval from member states and the European Parliament, says automakers can make up that 10 per cent through the use of sustainable renewable fuels or using lower-emissions steel made in Europe.
This is the second adjustment from the Commission for Europe’s auto sector, having already introduced flexibilities on how emissions would be counted earlier this year.
This comes as Canada weighs its own electric vehicle future, and the U.S. recommits to gas cars — all while automakers struggle against Chinese EV dominance.
While Hoekstra described this as a “win-win” for all, some critics see it as a distraction from an ambitious plan that would significantly lower Europe’s emissions.
“The world is going electric and this will happen with or without Europe,” said Lucien Mathieu, director of the cars program at Transport & Environment, a group of non-governmental organizations. “What Europe risks doing — by clinging to the combustion engine and to the hybrids — is investing in these technologies that will be outdated.”
Ambition meets pragmatism
Other experts see today’s move as a fair compromise, adjusting to current economic pressures for automakers.
“I think that the EU is taking a pragmatic approach,” said Joanna Kyriazis, director of policy and strategy at Clean Energy Canada. “All countries with domestic auto sectors are revisiting their policy landscape to figure out what’s possible, what’s reasonable.”
“Hundred per cent is always a problematic goal,” said Gil Tal, director of the Electric Vehicle Research Center at University of California, Davis. “Banning gas cars, it may be great all the way to 90 and then very, very, very costly the last 10 per cent.”
The EV elephant
In the months leading up to Tuesday’s proposed tweaks, there had been intense lobbying and pressure campaigns.
In a recent letter, six EU leaders called for allowing more fuel-efficient vehicles in order to “pursue our climatic goal in an effective way, while not killing our competitiveness.” A counter argument, signed by a couple hundred members of Europe’s electric vehicle industry, warned that diluting the goal would risk “deeper dependency, lost influence, and falling irreversibly behind.”
The under- and overtone of both letters was the elephant in the room: China, the clear global front-runner in electric vehicle production and sales.
Kyriazis says Chinese-made EVs are low-cost, high quality challengers, but their dominance isn’t complete. While Europe has allowed them to be sold at a lower tariff rate than Canada and the U.S., they account for about 10 per cent of electric car sales.
“The fear has been that these EVs are just going to take over and kill domestic industry. And while they are popular vehicles among drivers, they haven’t quite taken over,” Kyriazis said.
But others see any slowing down from Europe as an open lane for China.
“This is a global race to electric cars,” Mathieu told CBC News from Brussels. “China is currently racing ahead, and Europe will not be able to catch up by investing in the technologies of yesterday.”
Turn signals
Today’s proposed shift isn’t a complete reversal, unlike U.S. President Donald Trump’s scrapping of EV mandates and tax credits as well as slashing fuel economy standards for gasoline vehicles. But experts say the climbdown will be watched around the world.
“It sends a message of mixed signals, a message of hesitation,” Mathieu described, adding that the proposals serve as a compass for EV investment.
“We see today that it’s hundreds of billions of euros invested in electric technology … all of those investments can be jeopardized if we change the targets while we’re just starting or in the middle of this transition.”
To ease tariff and trade pressures, Prime Minister Mark Carney paused Canada’s electric vehicle sales targets, which also demanded all new Canadian car sales be electric by 2035.
“Canada’s at an inflection point right now,” Kyriazis said, explaining that it can follow the U.S. example or adjust its plans slightly, as the EU is doing. “I’m hoping … we take a similar approach of tweaking the policy to respond to this moment in time, while maintaining a clear market signal and commitment to electrification.”
And experts agree that whatever the road looks like to get there, getting off gas cars is worth the bumps along the way.
“Decarbonizing the light-duty vehicle sector is the closest thing to a silver bullet we have,” Tal told CBC News.
“It’s the one policy, the one technology that actually works, that can make a huge difference.”
