A few weeks ago I had to change my car and I chose a full-hybrid: that is, a fully hybrid car. In the urban cycle, but also extra-urban, it travels 8 kilometers out of 10, or 80 out of 100, with the electric motor. A percentage that drops to just under 70 percent along the highways with a speed limit between 90 and 110 kilometers per hour. The second gasoline engine is mainly used to recharge the batteries. Or to move the car on the highway where, again thanks to the electric support and a light foot, consumption remains below 27-29 kilometers with a liter of gasoline.

The hybrid car that pollutes less

The car model I chose fully complies with the carbon dioxide (CO2) emission limit that the European Union has established starting from 2025: 93.6 grams per kilometer, which is still almost a kilo of CO2 every ten kilometers, a ton every 10 thousand. But my new car is already below the next European constraints: according to the laboratory tests declared on the combined, urban and extra-urban cycle, it produces between 87 and 92 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer. And 0.007 grams of nitrogen oxides.

I didn’t buy an electric car because I can’t afford it: the ones currently in circulation in Europe are very expensive. And above all because, like most drivers, I believe that at this point in technological evolution, battery charging times are not compatible with my travel needs. Even for work. And I didn’t buy an SUV, not only because of the unjustified cost: but because I think it’s crazy to add weight and size, when we have the duty and the right technology to consume and pollute less. It would be like setting the heating at home to 23 degrees to stay in short sleeves in winter. And maybe leave the windows open, because then it’s too hot.

The two and a half ton SUV

But let’s get back to cars. Mine weighs 1,165 kilos, despite being at the top of the safety rankings in the event of an accident. It can reach 175 kilometres per hour, a thrill that I have never experienced in two months, given that the maximum limit on the motorway is 130. It is 3.9 metres long and 1.7 metres wide. And it consumes on average, according to approval tests, between 3.8 and 4.1 litres of petrol every 100 kilometres. The brand is Japanese. But it was produced in the European Union.

Let’s now try to compare this data with one of the most advertised new European hybrid SUVs these days. Weight: 2500 kilos, a ton and a half more than my car. Dimensions: 4.7 meters long by 1.9 wide. Maximum speed: 215 kilometers per hour. All this, obviously, has its consequences on consumption and pollution values. Here they are: between 6.9 and 7.6 liters of fuel every 100 kilometers and between 156 and 172 grams of CO2 every kilometer. Almost double, well outside the new European limits. And we’re talking about a hybrid.

So the new models release more CO2

With a traditional European SUV, latest-generation diesel engine, without electric support, like the majority of SUVs on the road, the numbers are much worse. Weight: 2235 kilos. Dimensions: 4.9 meters by 1.9. Maximum speed: 226 kilometers per hour. Consumption: 8.1-8.8 liters per 100 kilometers. Emissions: between 213 and 230 grams of CO2 per kilometer. Let’s go down in price and change the brand, always European: diesel engine, maximum speed 207 kilometers per hour, consumption at 5.3 liters of diesel per 100 kilometers. Result: CO2 emissions equal to 139 grams per kilometer. But the hybrid version of the same model produces even more carbon dioxide: 141 grams per kilometer.

This automotive gigantism is not an environmental necessity. In much of Europe, as well as in Italy, the roads are well paved and to go from Padua to Florence we do not have to face a safari. The masses of off-road vehicles disguised as luxury cars in the city and on the highways are unnecessarily cumbersome and polluting. But consumers like them and, thanks to the billion-dollar profits that have made the manufacturers rich over time, they continue to guide the commercial strategies of the main European car manufacturers. So much so that today in many countries more SUVs are sold than cars: in Italy the overtaking occurred in 2021 with 711 thousand “Sport Utility Vehicles” (this means), against 658 thousand sedans. An unstoppable rise, pumped up by advertising: in 2012 SUVs represented only 17 percent of the Italian market. This morning I did a rough census in one of the large subway parking lots in Milan. In a double row of 50 cars, there were 27 SUVs: 54 percent. And it often becomes difficult to even open the door and get out, if the only available parking space is between two giants.

The wrong bet of the builders

In order not to damage the consolidated positions of the European industry, Brussels has not imposed the new CO2 emission limit on all vehicles produced from 2025. Instead, it has required that only the average emissions of production be less than 93.6 grams per kilometer. So, if I want to continue to offer an SUV with 172 grams of CO2 per kilometer, I must simultaneously produce and sell a zero-emission electric car: so the average can ideally drop to 86 grams per kilometer.

On paper, the bet paid off for manufacturers: SUVs are expensive, electric cars are too, double the gain. However, to offset the emissions produced by SUVs, traditional sedans and even hybrid cars, the sale of electric cars in Europe should exceed 20 percent of the market starting next year. But we are very far away: the latest data for 2023, which was a record year for sales, stops at 14.2 percent and in 2024, according to the manufacturers’ association Acea, the purchase of electric cars actually fell to 12.6 percent. For the vast majority of drivers, current electric models, with their charging problems and high purchase costs, are not convenient. In addition to the fact that many families do not have enough savings to change their car.

Why we need to go back to low-cost cars

The main European car manufacturers – some of which in 2015 had focused on diesel engines, rigging pollution data and then paying compensation for tens of billions – have therefore bet on the preservation of the market, leaving it exactly as it is. And led by Germany, in these years useful for change, they have given up on reforming driving tastes and habits. So from 2025, if they do not respect the average value of emissions of 93.6 grams per kilometer, they risk overall fines valued, again by the Acea lobby, at around 15 billion euros.

In short, they have bet (almost) everything on SUVs. And they have ignored not only the popular car, but also the “gentle” one, which grants luxuries to those who work or love the comforts of driving, without adding unnecessary weight and therefore high pollution rates. This is the wrong bet that is dragging the new European Commission and all of us into a conflict with the automotive industry, which alone guarantees 15 million jobs. Hence the request by Acea to postpone the entry into force of the new limits to 2027. And the announcement by Volkswagen and Audi to close plants in Germany and Belgium, leaving thousands of workers at home. The most classic of threats, to obtain favors and benefits from politics (in the photo above, the former Audi designer, Wolfgang Egger, who moved to the Chinese BYD).

The solitary protest of Stellantis and Carlos Tavares

Mediation will probably prevail. But not everyone agrees. Stellantis, the French group that incorporated Fiat, left the European manufacturers’ association in 2022. And a few days ago in Turin, CEO Carlos Tavares, in a forum with the specialized press, clearly said that there is no going back from electric: “Now we are a few months away from the introduction of the regulations and someone wants to change the rules – observes Tavares -. But why? We are in the region of the world that is the most sensitive, the most demanding in terms of competition. This is the dogma of Europe. And that is what we have done. My technology is ready. My cars are ready, my factories are ready. The rules are known. The competition is about to begin. Why should we change the rules? Why is global warming no longer a problem?”.

Meanwhile, the new Chinese brands are watching us from the window. Beijing dominates the world market for rare earths needed to produce electric or hybrid cars, dominates their transformation processes and also dominates the research and production of batteries. They started off on the right path from afar. The communist regime supports the national industry with billions in funding. And so the manufacturers are preparing to invade Europe. Exactly as European manufacturers did twenty years ago in China with our (old) models.

And Wolfgang Egger starts again from China

We’ll see what happens in 2025. When the first real low-cost Chinese electric car could arrive here too. It’s called Seagull, it’s produced by the feared BYD, it has a range of over 400 kilometers. And it could cost, duties permitting, around 12 thousand euros. Twenty thousand less than European models. It was designed by Wolfgang Egger, a designer who studied in Milan, grew up in Alfa Romeo and became famous in Audi and Lamborghini. It’s certainly not his fault if the best conditions for research, technology and imagination, once the pride of Europe, are now found in China.

Personally, I don’t think we’ll be able to meet the unrealistic goal of the European Green Deal: zero-emission roads by 2035, according to the package of strategic regulations against petroleum derivatives, which however do not take into account the high CO2 emissions caused by battery production. The first to no longer believe in it, after having made it a banner to the detriment of industries, national governments and citizens, seems to be the recently reconfirmed president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen (photo above). And it is, in my opinion, a new, incredible blunder by Brussels. Because, if we look at the emission limits in force from next year, the technology to make the air a little cleaner already exists. And it is already convenient: it is called a full-hybrid engine. As long as it is no longer mounted on useless SUVs.

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