Many people are disappointed by the relaxation of the ban on combustion engines in cars

Last week, the EU Commission presented the relaxation of the 2035 combustion engine ban in the EU, which caused a lot of controversy. The sale of new gasoline and diesel cars was supposed to end in practice in 2035, when a zero tolerance was set for the emissions of new passenger cars.

Instead of a 100% ban, the Commission proposes a 90% emission reduction for passenger cars for approval by the EU Parliament and the Council. For many motorists, the Commission’s proposal is a disappointment, but it is also a disappointment and a point of contention for the Parliament and the Council.

Only complicated reservations are now being added to the combustion engine ban, but the main direction itself is clear in the EU Commission’s papers: driving and traffic will be electrified.

The anemic state of the Finnish car trade will not be improved by the commission’s proposal. “Yes, it’s completely in our own hands, how we get the sales of new cars in a better shape”, CEO of Autotuojat ja teollisuus ry Tero Kallio says.

This year, the registration of new passenger cars will remain at only around 72,000–73,000 cars. Next year’s preliminary forecast estimate is 76,000 cars. Traffic is slowly becoming electrified in Finland, of course even with these sales figures, especially since there have also been a lot of rechargeable cars in used passenger cars – either fully electric cars or rechargeable hybrid cars.

However, change is slow. For example, of the approximately 66,000 passenger cars registered in January-November, almost 30,000 were gasoline or diesel cars and the rest were fully electric cars or plug-in hybrids. With these numbers, the fleet of 2.7 million passenger cars in Finnish traffic will not be electrified very quickly. The internal combustion engine car bought this year will still be in use in the 2040s.

However, the emissions from motoring may decrease, because the mitigation now allows car manufacturers to keep some combustion engine models in their range, even if the manufacturers have to compensate for a tenth of the emission share with, for example, low-emission steel made in the EU.

The versatility of the collection plays an extremely important role in the car trade. Tero Kallio estimates that some of the owners of used cars have been able to hold on to their old car “by force” because they have not found a suitable car for themselves among the electric options.

Therefore, the Commission’s relaxations can give the industry more time to develop plug-in hybrids in practice, but also light hybrids and combustion engine cars, if the cars can use synthetic fuels or biofuels.

However, the Achilles heel of the commission’s proposal is that the proposal does not deal with the agreed extortion measures for the next few years. For example, the competitiveness of plug-in hybrids will weaken next year, but especially in 2028, when car emission values ​​will be drastically tightened. In this case, their taxation will rise significantly in Finland, for example.

If the tightening takes place, the car industry will hardly have an incentive to develop hybrids at the same pace as electric cars.