France and Germany have agreed to push for a further weakening of the EU’s planned phaseout of new combustion engine cars, a deal that could break a months-long deadlock among member states, business daily Handelsblatt and newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported.
BMW, Audi, and Mercedes are struggling to differentiate themselves when the performance is all but equal and all the cars weigh 2 tonnes.
And that’s just the ICE cars. EVs are a bigger challenge. Delaying the inevitable is not going to help.
Does it even make a difference? Even today one has to be creative to argume against buying a an EV over an ICE. I cannot see more than the 5% most idealistic people buying a new ICE car in 2035. Also the moment will come when the manufacturing lines of ICE cars are so unproductive that the manufacturers will shut them down on their own. It is up to them if they will still be making cars after that point.
Why the hell is Merz so hellbend on destroying the German car industry? Electric is clearly the future. There are even a bunch of fairly cheap electric cars available and prices are falling. Not just that, but EVs are already taking a large enough market share, that car companies are shutting down combustion engine production lines. If Germany remains focused on them, then the Chinese will just kill their car companies.
Yes, sure. But will that happen before his term is over? No? Seeee, thats someone else’s problem. For now pandering to the far right is more important
Yes but this is more serving the rich. Pandering to the far right is how he and politicians/insert-favorite-animal-insult like him get political cover for doing their job, which is serving the rich.
por que no los dos?
Die allermeisten Reichen sind auch Rechts
In exchange for French support on cars, Germany will back France’s demands for strict “Buy European” rules favouring EU-made products in public subsidies and tenders, Handelsblatt wrote, citing three unnamed sources.
Delaying the phase out is probably not good. But realistically, it’s already happening even without a legal framework simply due to cost considerations. I reckon the trend will continue. “Buy European” rules that favor EU-made products in public subsidies and tenders on the other hand are probably good. Ideally, you wouldn’t need to trade in a phase out for “Buy European” rules, but I guess this is one way to gain support for it?
With those gasoline prices, they’ll phase themselves out of the market.
But before that: let’s throw as much tax money at this dying market as possible!
I think people are going mask off
The Merz led government dropped the last pieces of the mask when they voted with the AfD in 2025.
Oh that’s not good.
