Guest commentary
Combustion ban
Ferdinand Dudenhöffer: Ursula von der Leyen is burying the electric car!
Car expert Professor Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, a university lecturer for many years, runs the Bochum-based Ferdi Research GmbH and the “Car Institute”
In the EU, the conservative EPP is working to overturn the ban on combustion engines by 2035 – also with false facts. This harms the environment and drivers, says car expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer in a guest article for star.
The program was specified in a legislative package called “Fit for 55”. According to this, greenhouse gas emissions in Europe should be reduced by at least 55 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 in order to achieve climate neutrality in 2050. An important building block in this “Fit for 55” was the ban on combustion engines.
The EU transport policy is a disgrace
Ursula von der Leyen has so far presented herself as the Joan of Arc of climate-friendly road transport. And she enjoyed the role of a female “Elon Musk for Europe” who is powerfully driving forward e-mobility economically. However, while Elon Musk and Tesla remain loyal to the electric car, Ms. von der Leyen’s loyalty is dwindling. The European elections are coming soon and the Commission President is aiming for a second term in office. She is the leading candidate of the European People’s Party (EPP), which in turn is the largest group in the EU Parliament. Leading particularly conservative politicians in the EPP, whose vote von der Leyen needs for a second term in office, say that “the ban on combustion engines was a wrong decision that must now be corrected as quickly as possible.” Electric cars are not accepted by consumers because there is a lack of charging infrastructure. A disgrace: What Elon Musk achieved with Tesla as a start-up, namely laying an infrastructure with fast chargers and wall boxes across Europe, Europe cannot do – and is resigned. Von der Leyen has already promised in the media to review the ban on combustion engines in 2026.
At the same time, a table has recently been circulating in Brussels in which we can read that electric cars emit more greenhouse gases than diesel or gasoline engines. The opponents of electric cars are already celebrating. However, the facts in the paper are fundamentally wrong. What is calculated is almost a sleight of hand. When classifying the electric car, you simply base it on the old CO2 emissions from electricity generation measured in the EU in 2019 and draw generalized conclusions from this. In this way, electric cars that run on CO2-free nuclear power in France are classified as just as dirty as those in Poland that charge purely with coal-fired power. And what doesn’t fit is simply kept quiet. In this way, the high greenhouse gases that arise from the extraction of crude oil and the production and transport of gasoline and diesel are ignored in the calculations. These are weird calculations. The EU is axing the electric car, and von der Leyen is becoming its gravedigger.
The sales figures for electric cars are already crumbling
What the Commission is doing is also like a call to abolish state purchase bonuses for electric cars across Europe – unless they have already been set to zero, as in Germany. The tax exemption for electric cars, which applies in Germany until 2030 because they are actually CO2-free, could also be called into question by the tendentious Brussels table.
In the market, the opponents of electric cars can already report successes with their uncertainty campaigns: in the first two months, car sales in Germany rose by twelve percent, but they fell for electric cars. It is to be feared that the trend will continue. Why should a charging station operator set up new charging stations when electric car sales are withering? For drivers, the EU’s zigzag course brings nothing but problems, because at the same time the price of CO2 is rising – making petrol and diesel more expensive. Not to mention the problems of the city residents. The electric car is a blessing compared to diesel or gasoline engines, especially in big cities. It is clean, as there are no pollutants coming from the exhaust, and it is quiet. City dwellers will probably have to live longer in the noise and thick air of the big city.