EU’s 2035 Ban on New Fossil Fuel Cars May Benefit Chinese EV Makers

The European Parliament formally approved a law to effectively ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the European Union from 2035. “This move will be more beneficial to Chinese independent auto brands,” Cui Dongshu, Secretary-General of the China Passenger Car Association, judged. “In the next five years, the new energy vehicle market in China and in the world will inevitably form a sustained and strong growth trend.”

The landmark ruling will require that by 2035 carmakers must achieve a 100% cut in CO2 emissions from new vehicles sold, which would make it impossible to sell new fossil fuel-powered vehicles in the 27-country bloc. The law will also set a 55% cut in CO2 emissions for new vehicles sold from 2030 versus 2021 levels. New vans must comply with a 100% CO2 cut by 2035, and a 50% cut by 2030, compared with 2021 levels. The fuel vehicles sold by that time would still be able to be legally driven on the road and can be traded in normally in the used car market.

According to the global carbon neutral roadmap released by The International Energy Agency (IEA), most countries will ban the sale of fuel vehicles in 2035, and the world will enter the era of new energy vehicles. Earlier, Norway and Britain announced that they would ban the sale of traditional fuel vehicles from 2025 and 2035 respectively, though neither of them is among the 27 member states of EU. India, the state of California, China’s Hainan province and other countries and regions have announced that they will ban the sale of fuel vehicles starting in 2030.

Although Frans Timmermans, the vice president of the European Commission, said he fully believes that the European automobile industry can cope with the end of the internal combustion engine era, he warned members of the European Parliament that China launched 80 electric vehicles of good quality to the international market in 2022, and Europe must compete with China and can not give up the electric vehicle market to Chinese brands.

According to data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in 2022, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in China reached 7.058 million units and 6.887 million units respectively, up 96.9% and 93.4% year-on-year, ranking first in the world for eight consecutive years. Among them, 679,000 new energy vehicles were exported, up 1.2 times year-on-year, making China surpass Germany to become the second largest automobile exporter in the world. In the past year, more than ten Chinese automobile brands, such as BYD, SAIC, NIO, Voyah and Great Wall Motor’s WEY, have announced their plans to export products to Europe.

SEE ALSO: XPeng Launches G9 SUV and P7 Sedan for Europe

“At present, the technology of China’s own brands in the field of new energy vehicles is leading the world, boosting their global expansion,” Cailian Press quoted Zhang Zhuo, general manager of BYD’s Ocean Series. “Although China’s new energy vehicle market has just started rapid growth, it is expected that it will encounter greater competition in 2024, and the sales gross profit will gradually trend to zero, while the global expansion will become a great opportunity for continuous development.”