Italy Says the EU's Combustion Engine Ban Is 'Absurd'

Government officials believe there's a real risk the European car industry could collapse.

BMW X5 M Competition engine

Adrian Padeanu

By: Adrian Padeanu

Sep 10, 2024 at 3:36am ET

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Technically, the European Union won't ban sales of new cars with combustion engines from 2035. The EU won't allow automakers to sell new vehicles with harmful emissions. That's effectively the same thing unless the production of carbon-neutral synthetic fuels scales up accordingly within the next 10 years. Realistically, that doesn't seem feasible in such a short timeframe, so understandably, criticism against the ban is amounting.

Italy's Minister of the Environment and Energy Security is the latest voice to speak against the EU's 2035 ban. Automotive News Europe cites Gilberto Pichetto Fratin saying "the ban must be changed" as the "ideological vision" has already failed. He went as far as to say the plan is downright "absurd" and that Europe now "needs a pragmatic vision."

Italian officials want the 2035 new ICE sales ban to be reviewed ahead of schedule. Rather than having to wait until 2026, the country’s Minister for Business and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, wants the rule to be evaluated in early 2025. Ideally, things need to change. Otherwise, he believes the European car industry could collapse.

Instead of forcing all 27 EU countries to sell only EVs from the middle of the next decade, the right-wing government of Giorgia Meloni argues state members should have more freedom in terms of reaching decarbonization targets. The switch can't happen in just 10 years from now, so a gradual transition from ICE to EV would be a more realistic objective.

In the last few months, we've seen most automakers active in Europe adjust their EV goals by pushing back their lofty all-electric agendas. Even Volvo doesn't think it can end sales of gas cars by 2030 anymore. The likes of Mercedes, Porsche, Bentley, and Ford of Europe are no longer confident that they'll go electric-only as previously announced.

With many countries reducing or eliminating EV subsidies, demand for electric vehicles is slowing down. The European Automobile Manufacturers' Association says completely electric cars had a market share of 12.5% in the first six months of the year. That's down by 0.4% compared to the same period of 2023.

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Car manufacturers want you to buy their EVs over ICEs because they risk paying huge fines for going over the fleet emissions targets. It's about to get stricter from 2025, so you could say automakers are in a bit of a pickle. The tougher competition generated by an influx of cheaper Chinese-made cars certainly isn’t helping, although newly imposed tariffs are slowing things down.

Whatever happens in the EU will have global repercussions since some of the biggest car manufacturers are based in Europe. Should sales of new ICE vehicles be outlawed from 2035 in 27 Euro countries, there could be fewer newly developed gas cars in other markets. Maximizing economies of scale can be done by selling the same car/engine in as many countries as possible. If you take Europe out of the equation, the math must be completely redone.

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