Rarely can it be said that France and Spain are teaming up to achieve the same objective. At the same time They torpedo themselves as much as they can on the high speed railway or what they face each other directly because of the energetic connectionsthe electric car seems to have united the two countries.
At the same time that the European Union seems to be cracking regarding its positions on the electric car, France and Spain have not hesitated in positioning itself to defend possible modifications to a regulation led by Germany. The Germans are pushing to open the door to combustion engines and countries like Italy seem convinced that it is the way to go.
However, from Spain we have put many efforts to electrify our industrywe are embracing a good part of the models that should power Europeans in the coming years. France has also done everything possible to embrace the technology that, until recently, almost all of Europe defended as the best for the future.
What is being played?
The eternal and convoluted European bureaucracy
In 2023, European countries They voted to ban combustion engines from 2035. The ban left almost any technology that did not rely on electric or hydrogen out of play.
First of all, we must understand what the European Union roadmap is. The plan is to drastically reduce the volume of emissions from heavy and light transport.
Among the measures proposed, 2025 should be the year from which manufacturers would receive a fine of 95 euros for each car sold and for each gram of CO2/km exceeded in their average emissions at the end of the year. This has not been fulfilled and the manufacturers, who They expected billion-dollar fineswill be accountable in 2027 taking as reference the average emissions for the period 2025-2027. That is, if everything remains the same, whoever does not comply in this year 2025 must compensate in the coming years.
From 2030, the emissions limit is drastically reduced. The 49.5 gr/km of CO2 raised They leave any car with a combustion engine that is not highly electrified in the lurch. In fact, with the changes approved for plug-in hybrids, their sale is not a great guarantee when it comes to lowering emissions. Reducing these involves, yes or yes, selling electric cars.
And when 2035 arrives, cars with combustion engines that emit CO2 will not be able to be sold. This is important. The original wording spoke of “polluting emissions” and was finally changed to “CO2 emissions”. This makes sense because a fuel cell car can generate some polluting emissions in its electrolysis process but does not emit CO2. The first draft left everything that was not electric out of the market.
Finally, it was approved that cars with combustion engines will be prohibited from emitting CO2. But also the door was left open to e-fuels or synthetic fuels. These fuels trap CO2 for their production, so it is considered that the emissions produced in the engine are being compensated. Europe still has to debate whether to finally approve the proposal that would allow these cars to be sold.
The intention is that, if approved, these cars They will only be able to circulate with e-fuels and they must have sensors to prevent them from operating with traditional fuels or a mixture of synthetic and traditional fuels.
But, in addition, the 2023 approval in which the ban on selling cars with combustion engines was confirmed already included the obligation to present a report before December 31, 2026 by the European Commission reporting on the progress that was being made. This report has been brought forward to 2025 and it is being studied. It will depend on him whether, finally, any type of modification is carried out.
Europe divided
Faced with this situation, Europe is divided. Despite the votes and the fact that the regulations should be firm, countries such as Germany and Italy and manufacturers are pushing for the current ban on combustion engines not to be maintained as drafted in 2035.
Spain and France have presented a document in which they reaffirm their position in defense of the current prohibitions. This comes after the European Commission confirmed that will advance the review at the end of this year of the current state of the regulations, which can open the door to modifications and more lax regulations.
In it document They reject favoring the use of plug-in hybrids since they consider that they emit more polluting particles than those reflected in the current tests and assure that “subterfuges should not be enabled that allow us to escape the ‘zero emissions’ objective for 2035”, in words collected by EFE.
The document is, as we said, the response to the pressure that countries like Germany and Italy are exerting. The Germans have even asked, directly, that the ban on selling cars with combustion engines be eliminated. They assure that allowing synthetic fuels will leave us with “cleaner mobility”.
Italy is the other big obstacle that the French and Spanish are encountering. Since Giorgia Meloni came to power has pointed out the regulations as wrong already approved that should prohibit the sale of engines that generate CO2. Like France and Spain, Germany and Italy also go hand in hand but in this case they have signed a document in which they consider that the current emissions regulations contemplate “disproportionate penalties.”
And here comes what can change everything. In Germany and Italy they believe that the volume of emissions must be taken into account “throughout the entire value chain or through the use of renewable fuels.” That is, each brand should be analyzed taking into account how many emissions it produces not only during the burning of the fuel in its engines, but also during its production.
The final objective seems clear: if the manufacturer saves on emissions during its production, the engines should have room to expel that CO2 that the brand is already compensating during its production. That is, an open door to completely lifting the current ban or, if necessary, being lax enough to extend it beyond synthetic fuels.
Because?
Why has it reached this point? The reasons are more than obvious. Manufacturers have made huge investments to produce electric cars that they do not finish amortizing the expense incurred.
Sales are not as expected. To understand what the calculations were we can go to ANFAC Electromobility Barometer. It shows how far we are from the objectives set year after year in Spain and Europe. According to their data, the European Union has covered 43.1% of the objectives it had set for 2025 in terms of electric car penetration. Spain has barely covered 29.3%. Germany, Europe’s largest market, barely exceeds the 53% target expected for this year.
All of this has led to generating an economic hole that is really pronounced among German manufacturers who have remained manufacturing in Germany. There, labor and energy costs are higher, making it even more complicated. get the most out of the cheapest product. To this we must add that we are facing a turning pointwhere cheaper electric vehicles are arriving but sales do not break as expected. At the top, Audi, BMW, Mercedes or Porsche are discovering that they may have sold all the high-end electric cars for which there was demand but They are having a hard time generating new clients.
The position of ACEA, the manufacturers’ association, is a good reflection of their position. The big question is whether the companies have not gotten their act together early enough or whether, on the contrary, they have made investments for which are not achieving the expected results. The truth is that companies like Toyota, which were accused of having fallen behind, are reaping enormous results having put aside, at least for now, the sale of electric cars.
These manufacturers have enormous strength in countries like Germany and Italy but have found the embrace of France and Spain when it comes to producing their vehicles. In the French case, in the absence of European aid, it has been established a category of aid that leaves out to electric cars that are not made in Europe. It has been a way to force manufacturers to produce electric cars on their soil that, with current regulations, should motivate the citizens of our continent in the future.
Spain has taken similar steps, watering aid to manufacturers like Volkswagen either Stellantis who have sent the cheapest electric cars to our country. Those same ones that, as we said, should represent a turning point in the sales of electric cars but that, however, do not end up breaking because with current technology They continue to force certain renunciations on long trips that not everyone wants to do, no matter how exceptional they may be.
If emissions regulations are made more flexible, if the door is opened for combustion engines to remain alive or, at least, not entail such harsh sanctions for their manufacturers, it puts Spanish interests in check. And Spain is a good example of how countries that do not have the best incomes and, furthermore, have not worked on an extensive charging network result in the most purchased car still being “cheap” and powered by gasoline.
Specifically, the Dacia Sandero.
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