Combustion engine phase-out: Watering down targets won't benefit industry

Tens of thousands of jobs have already been cut, and tens of thousands more are at stake. Because it is becoming apparent that the automotive industry is struggling with a transformation for various reasons, a postponement is intended to give it more time to adapt. Chancellor Friedrich Merz of the CDU has therefore written a letter to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. His coalition of CDU, CSU, and SPD has agreed on a watering down of the decision on the combustion engine phase-out and hopes for its implementation within the EU. The hard-won decision to phase out combustion engines in new cars was actually intended to reduce the emission of climate-damaging carbon dioxide (CO₂) in transport. The intended watering down is likely to postpone this and harm, rather than benefit, the industry.

An opinion by Florian Pillau

Screwdriver and long-distance car traveler, linguist, phonetician, and technical writer who found his niche in the right environment.

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It is not even unlikely that the EU Commission will comply with this request. As with the request for a "technology-open continuation" of combustion engine sales, which the FDP negotiated at the last minute before the decision to phase out by 2035, before it, continuing its rampage, blew up the traffic light coalition. This party could not endanger the EU's climate goals in any way. The experts there know what "technology-open" means and can remain calm: Continue to build "efficient combustion engines" or hybrid cars if you like. They have no chance against the more efficient and cheaper electric cars anyway.

"Technology openness" vs. laws of nature

Anyone who, like our Chancellor, demands life-sustaining measures for a clinically dead technology with "technology openness" or "efficient combustion engines" has either not paid attention in school or wants to pull the wool over the eyes of the uninformed. Anyone who denies physical insights like the Carnot cycle is closing their eyes to the scientifically proven fact that, due to the laws governing our universe, a combustion engine cannot be developed further than a few percent beyond the efficiency level achieved today. Apart from that, such an interpretation of physical facts legitimizes the practice of certain opponents of our constitutional order to treat laws of nature as a matter of opinion as soon as they do not suit them.

In view of the commitment to strict climate policy announced by our government at COP30 in Belém, Brazil, and the Chancellor's own realization in his cover letter, "Electromobility is the central future technology on the path to climate neutrality," the talk of "technology openness" or "efficient combustion engines" sounds like mockery. For it seems the Chancellor has understood very well and yet, ten days after the commitment in Belém, is promoting the opposite of what he claims to have recognized as correct with his letter to the EU.

Dynamic competition

That alone would be tragic for Mr. Merz personally. But he is Chancellor and responsible for a lot of jobs. Preserving these by feeding outdated technology, with the active help of IG Metall, might have worked for a while a few decades ago in a world firmly shaped by the Cold War. Today, however, in a highly dynamic power competition among states, a government cannot, no, must not afford such a thing. Not only because of the wasted resources, but because of the leading position in the global economy. Germany has already had enough experience with unnecessarily falling behind, for example, through the loss of the solar industry or parts of its robotics expertise to China. That hurt, and yet these were only small sub-sectors compared to the automotive industry and its highly specialized suppliers.

Currently, the industry is laying off tens of thousands. If it is allowed to prove quarterly that it is working its way back up from a low that is largely not its own fault, then it may continue to serve shareholder value. In the long term, however, this precisely creates the danger that Chinese manufacturers will catch up even further if they do not throw themselves with all their might and state support into their competitiveness. What then?

I spoke of state support. Yes, the automotive industry can do much more on its own than it admits in the hope of easily accessible aid. Genuine help for a transformation, on the other hand, is offered by the consistent creation of suitable framework conditions, such as faster expansion of charging infrastructure and significant progress in the redistribution and storage of renewable electricity. The industry also needs legal certainty in the construction of battery factories and domestic production of industry-specific semiconductors, which would also be the government's responsibility. What it does not need, however, are customers unsettled by sensational reports of alleged "technology openness" and supposedly "efficient combustion engines," who continue to postpone the purchase of electric cars, even though this type of motorization has long been cheaper for them.

(fpi)