Did Gasoline Win the European Election?

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June 12, 2024

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by Arianna Skibell (Politico's Power Switch) The stunning results from the European election hammered home one reality for leaders on both sides of the Atlantic: People don’t like you messing with their cars. The EU’s plan to ban the sale of internal-combustion-engine vehicles by 2035 emerged as a possible casualty of the conservative victories at the polls — a potentially major setback for the bloc’s efforts to reduce climate pollution.

Manfred Weber, whose center-right European People’s Party won the most seats in the European Parliament, wasted no time in calling for a reversal of the ban. Weber already has a friend in France, where far-right National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen told French media that consumers should be able to buy any car they want.

This comes on the heels of setbacks large and small for efforts to lessen carbon emissions and other car-related ills in the United States — including last week’s equally stunning reversal of a planned $15 toll in Manhattan and the relaxation of the Biden administration’s new fuel-efficiency requirements for gasoline-powered vehicles.

And further rollbacks could lie in wait if American voters elect former President Donald Trump, who has joined European conservatives in a backlash against efforts to transition toward electric cars and trucks.

What’s behind the road rage?

The fate of Europe’s ban on gas cars could come down to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s efforts to secure a second five-year term: Von der Leyen, who introduced the law, may need the backing of the EU’s climate-minded Greens, who still hold potential leverage despite taking a shellacking at the polls.

Not all automakers are pleased by the prospect of reversing the ban. Volvo’s director of EU affairs, Céline Domecq, told POLITICO’s Jordyn Dahl that the policy change would be “terrible news.”

The situation in the U.S. is similarly murky. The Biden administration has never pushed for a flat-out ban on gasoline-fueled cars, though it has used a mixture of tax breaks and pollution limits to encourage a shift away from them. And lately, it has made some concessions to automakers.

In March, it issued strict pollution limits for light-duty vehicles while offering assurances that the rules leave room for plug-in hybrids and other types of cars that run on gasoline. Last week, the administration relaxed a proposal that requires traditional SUVs and pickup trucks to get more miles from each gallon of fuel.

And in New York, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul’s last-minute decision to halt the congestion pricing plan threatens to hurt similar efforts across the country. (But it pleased auto dealers, who were throwing her a fundraiser today.)

The biggest wild card in the car wars may, of course, be Trump.

He has pledged to roll back President Joe Biden’s landmark climate law and other green policies if he takes back the White House, and he remains steadfast in his support of fossil fuels. But he’s started to say he’s a “big fan” of EVs — a likely nod to his new alliance with Tesla CEO Elon Musk. READ MORE

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Sustainable and scalable supplies (Biofuels International)
EU must revise combustion engine ban, bloc’s largest party says (Bloomberg)

Excerpt from Biofuels International: Following the European elections, several high-profile MEPs and politicians have publicly stated that renewable fuels like biofuels will have a major role to play in reducing road GHG emissions in the coming decades, arguing against the ban on the sale of new petrol or diesel cars in the EU from 2035 onwards.

The Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was the most recent to say that the ban makes no sense and the Italian government will work to correct it, as it could be argued that the EU green transition has been pursued at the cost of sacrificing entire production sectors, such as the automotive industry.

During the forthcoming tenure of the new EU institutions, the narrative is shifting. The post-covid energy crisis intensified following the Russian invasion into Ukraine and hit the EU severely leading to a cost-of-living crisis that impacted the wealth of the average European citizen.

In the face of this, and a fear of extreme right political parties gaining ground primarily in Germany, France and other Member States, the focus is shifting towards European competitiveness, industrial rebirth, reducing our reliance on foreign supply chains and even changing our demand patterns to reduce overall consumption.

However, the unified message is loud and clear. Europe needs to protect and strengthen its industrial powerhouses, rebrand the once powerful “Made in the EU”, invest in reindustrialising its economy and diversify its energy sources to protect its citizens from energy security related issues.

Decarbonisation goals
The European biofuels sector is echoing such voices and has significant capacity to provide additional support to the decarbonisation of hard to abate sectors like the HDV industry. Already, 88% of renewables in transport come from biofuels, achieving considerable emission reductions.

However, there should be no limitation on the level of bio blends (aka B+) used in dieselengined transport, especially long haulage transportation that barely incorporates 5% of renewable fuel currently, the remaining being fossil diesel. It is essential for policymakers to craft an inclusive policy incentive scheme that will promote all sustainable solutions available including the use of higher biofuel blends to reduce GHG emissions with immediate effect.

While the efforts to achieve zero emissions must be pursued in the medium to long-term, the potential for higher biofuel blends to contribute to the decarbonisation of all remaining internal combustion engines in heavy duty vehicles is huge.

With national projections across the EU showing these HDVs will be on the roads in considerable numbers as far out as 2040 and beyond, there is an urgent need for an ambitious, technology-neutral mechanisms to drive more de-fossilisation of the ICE fleets with high-blends of biodiesel.

Thanks to biodiesel, every car, van, truck, and ship can immediately contribute to the European decarbonisation policy objectives. The Heavy-Duty Vehicles (HDV) sector, however, is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise, therefore B+ provides a huge opportunity for increasing GHG reductions four-fold simply by using standard high blends such as B20 (20% biodiesel into diesel blend), and higher. B+ is the European initiative to maximise decarbonisation in in Heavy Duty Vehicles (HDV) with higher blends of biodiesel (FAME) and renewable diesel (HVO).

The B+ wider initiative was instigated by the European Biodiesel Board (EBB), the European Waste-based & Advanced Biofuels Association (EWABA) and Portuguese Waste Bioenergy Association (ABA) in April 2023.

The overall objective is to effect the demand for high blends use in HDVs through national/regional incentive mechanisms by mid-2027.

The higher blends uptake at stake could be achieved mainly by:

• raising awareness among HDV industry stakeholders on the business case for higher blends to reach their GHG reduction/renewable obligations (national, EU, scope III, corporate);
• raising awareness among national authorities on the cost-effectiveness of high blends and the case for its significant contribution to difficult to decarbonise road vehicles
• educating fleet operators on different types of biodiesel, compatibility with engines, comparative costs and sustainability credentials;
• designing and implementing incentive support mechanisms for fleet operators adopting B+;
• gaining EU-wide recognition on the benefits it overall achieves for heavy transport decarbonisation. Following the successful European B+ Summit last year in Portugal, the group is organising the 2nd European B+ Summit in the first half of 2025 with high ambition for an even greater participation.

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More specifically, the obligation to reduce average fleet emissions of new heavy-duty vehicles by 45% in 2030 and up to 90% in 2040 are reachable only via electromobility. This blatantly means that renewable fuels are not recognised as there is no lifecycle assessment to measure and compare the full life cycle emissions of biofuels, e-fuels and other renewable fuels compared to electric vehicles.
Once again, the ‘zero emission’ narrative adopted by the European Commission is killing European industry to promote a sector (i.e. EVs) that is clearly not ready and not at the scale we need to support full grid electrification and efficient and safe transportation of goods and services across the European bloc.

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There must not be reliance on ‘silver’ bullets any longer. No more time should be wasted when there is already sustainable and scalable supplies to decarbonise transport today, thanks entirely to the ambitious incentives from the EU. Businesses should not risk losing the existing and planned investments in an EU-made industry supporting thousands of EU citizens and 100+ production facilities across Europe, close to agriculture in rural and remote communities. READ MORE

Excerpt from Bloomberg: The European Union should revise its plan to effectively ban new combustion engine cars from 2035 amid a growing crisis in the automobile industry, the bloc’s largest political group warned. The center-right European People’s Party said in a statement that the plan risks making driving too expensive and moving jobs in the auto sector to China. While the group stopped short of calling for a delay, it asked that the bloc follow a “technologically neutral” approach, generally understood as making provisions for e-fuels and solutions other than electrification. “We must ensure that driving remains affordable for everyone, not just those who can afford expensive electric cars,” said Jens Gieseke, an EPP lawmaker who helped lead negotiations on the ban. READ MORE