Thermal cars, towards the 2035 stop sign: the market wins in the end

According to persistent rumours, the ban on selling cars with an internal combustion engine from 2035 has been lifted. Why and what does it mean?

There is only one cause: consumers. They have not accepted going from a near-perfect car to one that has to stop for hours to recharge. It is all there. It has always been there. Under everyone's eyes and in fact everyone could see it. Only, they pretended they 'didn't' see. They pretended because they didn't have the courage to admit that the ecological solution of eliminating absolute evil didn't stand up, that people might wish for a car-free life, but then they would never practice it. No one wanted to be the one who disavowed the credo of ecology at any cost. Consequently, everyone suffered in silence, continuing to pledge allegiance to decarbonisation knowing that they were committing suicide. But courage, Manzoni made Don Abbondio say, if one does not have it, one cannot give it to oneself.

Let it be clear, the significance of this about-face is more symbolic than actual. Raising the ban from 100 to 90 per cent would border on irony, if it were not a sign that this decision is destined to evaporate. From these columns we have always written from the outset that it would not hold for more than one Commission and we have two more to go until 2035.

What happens now? Little or nothing at the industry and market level. Again, everyone knows that the industry is making its production and sales policies based on this year's fines and not for the 2035 ban, not least because none of the managers will be in place in ten years' time. If they don't remove the fines, and it doesn't seem to be in sight, the factories will continue to churn out few electric cars, since they don't sell, and not enough thermal cars to keep the workers employed. With the factories closed, the ball is in the political court, which must choose between restarting the industry and continuing to call for saving the planet through policies that are as self-defeating as they are climate-neutral.

But beware, whatever the next steps are, they start from minus minus. The damage has been done and it is very serious. Car manufacturers are burdened with huge investments in electric engines and platforms that will never produce a return. On the contrary, they have been freezing investment on thermal for years, losing much of the technological advantage they had.