BMW head says that Europe’s ICE ban is ‘no longer realistic’ | Zipse told reporters said that the EU needs to cancel its plan to ban ICE vehicles in 2035 to reduce reliance on China’s battery supply chain.
BMW head says that Europe’s ICE ban is ‘no longer realistic’
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From the article: BMW Group CEO Oliver Zipse says it’s time to pull the plug on the European Union’s plan to ban ICE vehicles in 2035. Clearly this isn’t the first time we’ve seen pushback, but Zipse is now taking it up a notch, despite EV sales going fairly well for BMW and Mini. What’s going on here?
At this week’s Paris auto show – one of the last few auto shows with any clout – Zipse told reporters said that the EU needs to cancel its plan to ban ICE vehicles in 2035 to reduce reliance on China’s battery supply chain.
In a comment designed to set off alarm bells in Brussels, the BMW CEO now says that the ICE ban is “no longer realistic” because EV sales are much lower than expected, and subsidies for EVs are “unsustainable,” according to Bloomberg.
“A correction of the 100 percent BEV target for 2035 as part of a comprehensive CO2-reduction package would also afford European OEMs less reliance on China for batteries,” Zipse said in a report from Reuters. “To maintain the successful course, a strictly technology-agnostic path within the policy framework is essential.”
In 2023, EU countries approved a landmark law that requires all new cars to have zero CO2 emissions from 2035. As of April 2023, new car fleets sold in the EU have a CO2 emission limit of 95 grams, while vans must not exceed 147 grams CO2/km. Rules will tighten again in 2025, as new cars are limited to 93.5 g CO2/km and vans at 153.9 g CO2/km. In 2030, limits will get stricter, leading to a ban on CO2 emissions on new cars and vans sold in the EU from 2035. Hence, as we get closer to that date, panic among legacy automakers is setting in.
Maybe, just maybe, auto companies who want to continue to sell vehicles in Europe should be agressivky investing in domestic battery production to reduce reliance on Chinese batteries? Just an idea
Pivot to selling bicycles. Improvise, adapt, overcome.
I believe hybrid technology is probably the best near term solution for the next 20 years. I love EVs but it’s not for everyone. There are serious obstacles, especially to lower income folks, such as extremely high cost of repair and lack of access to at-home charging. A very small turbo gasoline engine plus a electric motor can provide the power, range, and efficiency combination that makes sense for most drivers.
How the fuck does reducing battery demand increase the demand for local battery production?
Here’s a thought: what if they made a car that you’d actually want to buy ? Maybe some innovation here and there that you’d want, not like subscriptions to the full beam and heated seats
Canada already changed theirs from “no more ice vehicles after 2035” to “only vehicles that have the ability to emit zero emissions” which sounds like a different wording but really what it did was open up the PHEV loophole.
What I hear -> I want EU to subsidize my investments in battery plants
Go cry me a river auto industry. For the last 20 years they were the one teaching the Chinese how to produce a proper car.
We failed to get round to making competitive products for that future can we have the old future back please?
No longer realistic because of the stupid tariff put on Chinese EVs so that European manufacturers could slow down on Innovation and charge whatever stupid price they want.
It’ll never cease to be funny to me how Germany is famous for our car industry, when in reality they’re some of the most backwards, uninnovative and complacent companies on the planet.
Enough with the batteries already, just focus on cleaner ice or alternative fuels, theres already progress being made
BMW is just salty because they know that the majority of low/middle class people in Europe will purchase the cheaper imported Chinese EV’s over their more expensive offerings. They know that they cannot compete against a <20k euro EV.
One of Europe’s competitive advantages was making really high-quality petrol and diesel engines, which in engineering terms are incredibly complex things to manufacture.
And we’d got to the point where these engines were super clean and efficient, and then politicians decided let’s gift EV manufacturing to China by bringing in EV mandates and getting rid of ICE vehicles.
Surely would be better to transform cities and towns into cycling and pedestrian friendly places, make ICE vehicle travel much rarer – but have them use biofuels rather than petrol.
What if we just buy the batteries and put them into cars? Maybe they’ll throw in some solar panels to sweeten the deal.
We just need to produce something they want to trade for. Teslas? No. Boeing airplanes? Nope. Nvidia chips? Banned.
I’m out of ideas.
CO2 emissions from cars in the EU are a tiny fraction of total global emissions (less than 2%). Extending the deadline to reduce reliance on China’s battery supply chain makes sense to me.
It was never realistic.
Anyone with half a brain knew this.
But what does that even change with China as the biggest market for BMW falling short for ICE cars until 2030? This way we are basically staying on horse carts while China is already in the next era…
Stupid fucks offshored production to China. Now China has domestic auto industry that they can’t compete with. Good job guys, you’ve played yourselves. Being in North America, I don’t drive domestic cars anyway. I drive a VW. I don’t give a shit where it came from. If I had a better deal on Toyota, I’d be driving a Japanese car. Better deal on Kia? I’m driving a Korean car. If it weren’t for the bullshit tariffs, I’d be driving a Chinese car because, I like many other people, are first and foremost concerned with cost.
95% of companies want to do as little as possible and maximize past investments. They have a clear and established agenda to push back against anything new, especially something like this that makes them less profitable long term.
Oops we fucked up our strategic planning – please fuck up the planet to help us out
Dear European Automakers, it will only get worse if you don’t speed up your transformation. Delaying the inevitable will make it worse for you.
So we’re saying that the various oil cartels around the world are preferable to china?
You don’t have to ban them, but you have to build an infrastructure that makes people prefer electric cars. We’re far off from that happening. We basically would need a charger at every 3rd or 4th public parking spot to make it viable. Nobody wants to go out of their way to charge their car somewhere.
It’s not like the head of BMW would have *any* kind of ulterior motive in wanting to not only allow new cars to be electric, right? …
Right?