A clash over climate protection measures is threatening to unravel Germany’s three-party governing alliance after the Green party accused its liberal coalition partners of gambling away the country’s reputation by blocking an EU-wide phase-out of internal combustion engines in cars.
“You can’t have a coalition of progress where only one party is in charge of progress and the others try to stop the progress,” the country’s vice-chancellor and economy minister, Robert Habeck, said at a meeting of the Green party’s parliamentary group in Weimar on Tuesday. [emphasis, links added]
The pro-business Free Democratic party’s (FDP) last-minute opposition to EU plans to ban sales of new cars with internal combustion engines from 2035, which European leaders are hoping to resolve at a summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, had damaged Germany’s standing in the bloc, Habeck said.
“We are losing debates, we are getting too little support for our projects.”
The German liberals’ sudden rethink has caused frustration not just in the ranks of its coalition partners but in other European capitals, where there are fears that the continent’s largest economy reneging on previously struck agreements will embolden other states to act in a similarly erratic fashion.
FDP politicians argue that the phase-out in its current form risks destroying a German manufacturing industry that could in the future offer viable climate-neutral fuels as an alternative to purely battery-powered electric vehicles.
“We in Germany master the technology of the combustion engine better than anyone else in the world,” the FDP transport minister, Volker Wissing, said on German television on Wednesday night. “And it makes sense to keep this technology in our hands while some of the questions around climate-neutral mobility remain unanswered.”
In a proposed compromise, the European Commission has reportedly suggested criteria for a new category of CO2-neutral fuel-powered vehicles that could remain on European roads after 2035. Wissing’s transport ministry has not yet officially replied to the proposal.
To the surprise of its own members, the German Green party had remained relatively reserved in the debate over the combustion engine – until this week, when Habeck’s intervention raised the temperature in Berlin’s seats of power.
Read full post at The Guardian
There’s a much older one that might see a revival. Found On Road, Dead.
Ford has admitted that they are willing to lose billion$ pushing electric pick up trucks until the public makes them a winner. Even a red neck knows that a battery-only half-ton is a lead balloon.
Especially if you hook a trailer up to it. The range plummets even faster than the lead balloon. The only people who would buy one are those who don’t actually use the truck for work but want to look hip.
Once a nation loses its dominance it rarely gets it back. If Germany sacrifices it auto making dominance at the alter of climate change it will be gone for ever. The smartest thing to do would be recognize that the climate crisis is a fraud. However, continuing with biofuels is an option. Many fuels are possible but I’m pretty sure that only one that is economically feasible is ethanol. It isn’t carbon neutral but the climate change advocates don’t acknowledge this. Providing ethanol on the scale needed would be massive. This could result in a great opportunity for famers in the US, Canada, and Australia.
Thanks for supporting farmers, David. The corn for ethanol fuel legislation was enacted when farmers went broke over producing. It wasn’t an easy sell, so “saving the environment” was added to the argument. Ethanol has always been a replacement for gov’t subsidies, which included paying farmers to fallow their land.
As for the European Greens, I ask them , what is the difference between EV’s using electricity from fossil fueled generating stations and a plug-in hybrid vehicle? The Greens reject hybrids. I might consider purchasing a plug-in hybrid because I want to arrive at my destination every time. I will not buy a battery only EV. Compromise.
It was a ‘meme’ several months ago: “Ninety-five percent of all EV’s are still on the road. The other five percent made it home.”
🙂
Thanks mate, you just made my evening.
A plug-in hybrid seems a reasonable compromise. When most of your drives are short enough for the vehicle to run as an EV but have the IC engine when you go past the range of the battery by itself you can continue your journey. My wife and I both have hybrids since most of our driving is in the Denver area and getting 40+ MPG (my Honda CRV) or 50+ MPG (my wife’s Honda Accord) and that would be what you’d get in a plug-in hybrid once the battery had run out.
Hmmm. Germans suddenly questioning economic suicide.
And the rest of the Euroweenie Union reverts back to the Dark Ages and without electricity they would be the Dark Ages