Last December, the European Commission presented a broad package of measures to accompany the automotive sector in the transition towards clean mobility, the Automotive Package. In the provision he accepted the requests of the industry and some countries, including Italy, to lower ambitions and grant greater flexibility to help the sector prepare for the transition to electric in 2025. From 2035 the objective will no longer be the total zeroing of exhaust emissions, but a 90% reduction, with the remaining 10% offsettable through credits linked to the use of low-emission steel produced in the Union or through low-emission fuels such as biofuels and electrofuels.
In concrete terms, a manufacturer will be able to continue to sell a limited share of vehicles with internal combustion or hybrid engines, as long as it compensates for residual emissions by demonstrating that it has used cleaner industrial materials or fuels with a lower climate impact. This paves the way for the survival, even after 2035, of rechargeable hybrids, vehicles with range extenders and internal combustion engines alongside electric and hydrogen models. But there are those who ask to increase flexibility and give more space to the so-called “technological neutrality”, that is, to technologies other than those of the electric motor, for example those that use alternative fuels such as eFuel and biofuels, on which Germany and Italy respectively are focusing a lot.
The criticisms
The changes proposed by the Commission “are small steps forward but are absolutely insufficient to save the automotive industry in Europe”, denounces Guido Guidesi, councilor for economic development of the Lombardy region.
The Northern League representative, interviewed by Europa Today during his mission to the European Parliament in Brussels, explains that he is “working so that in the conversion of the measure at parliamentary level there can be a further corrective, a further space for action that broadens those targets and can allow us to have sustainable mobility, but that sustainable mobility in Europe cannot only see Chinese cars as the protagonist”.
The Commission’s measure is designed precisely to push the production of electric cars in Europe and thus combat Beijing’s excessive power in the sector, but Italy insists that we must also focus on hybrid cars powered by biofuels, fuels produced from natural sources and which are less polluting than traditional fuels from fossil sources.
Guido Guidesi, Councilor for Economic Development of the Lombardy Region
Technological neutrality
“Let’s not forget that biofuels allow us to transform refineries into biorefineries. So I wonder whether this could be an environmentally sustainable operation or not. Furthermore, the entire production and end-of-life process must be taken into consideration with respect to everything related to the automotive supply chain. But unfortunately this sector was treated incredibly differently by the previous Commission. While the other sectors, also with respect to the green issue, are evaluated based on the emissions of the entire process, the automotive sector is only evaluated in the use of the product, i.e. in the use of the car and in the final emissions”, underlines Guidesi.
“We are for technological neutrality, but we are also for contributing to the achievement of environmental objectives through all the solutions that technological innovation can make available to us”, underlines the Northern League councilor, according to whom this is the only way not to “put the automotive industry in Europe in difficulty from an economic point of view, which directly and indirectly provides 13 million jobs which today are at risk”, due to the crisis in the sector.
Diversify the routes
Guidesi complains that in Europe “a path has been approved which risks becoming a bad precedent for other sectors too”, stating that “to achieve an objective a single path cannot be imposed”. In his opinion “if the objective is sustainable mobility we must accept that all existing renewed possibilities can contribute to that mobility and perhaps even those that do not exist, leaving our production ecosystems free from the point of view of innovation”.
Instead now “we find ourselves with the imposition of a single solution, that of the electric car and it is clear that, when you impose a single path, when there is a single product possibility, the competition is won by the one who makes it cost less, like China, and that is exactly what is happening and what is putting jobs at risk, putting at risk a tradition from an industrial point of view that is fundamental for our economy and limiting the capacity for technological innovation of all our territories”, concludes Guidesi.
Biofuels and e-fuels: what they are and how they can help the ecological transition
Company fleets
The package proposed by the Commission also covers company vehicles, which represent around 60% of new car registrations and almost 90% of van registrations in the Union. The Commission is proposing a regulation requiring Member States to guarantee, from 2030, a mandatory minimum share of low- and zero-emission vehicles in new registrations by large companies.
The objectives will vary from country to country based on the maturity of the national markets, but the idea is to push companies, which often renew their car fleets and travel many kilometres, towards electric and clean technologies. To do this, public aid will be used: only low or zero emission vehicles produced in the Union will be able to benefit from state incentives, while strengthening European industrial policy.
European batteries at the center of the strategy
To reduce dependence on global chains, especially Asian ones, the package also launches the “Battery Booster”, a 1.8 billion euro plan to support the entire European battery supply chain. Of this, 1.5 billion will be provided in the form of zero-interest financing for cell manufacturers.
The goal is to address industrial bottlenecks, strengthen the supply of critical materials, support innovation and create a European manufacturing ecosystem capable of competing on cost and sustainability. Looking ahead, this should reduce the automotive industry’s exposure to geopolitical shocks and make the electric transition more stable.
