BMW boss: 2035 ICE ban overhaul needed or car industry 'will halve'

BMW boss Oliver Zipse has called for a radical overhaul of European regulations to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035 – warning that the car industry "will halve in size in Europe" under the current rules. EU regulations feature a firm 2035 cutoff for the sale of all CO2-emitting vehicles. UK regulations (under the zero-emission vehicle mandate) share the same cutoff date but feature an increasing percentage of EVs that must be sold each year. Zipse said the decision to focus CO2 reduction purely on the tailpipe emissions of vehicles, rather than by looking at the whole lifecycle emissions of a manufacturer, along with the manufacturing, use and disposal of its vehicles, risks distorting the market. Speaking to a select group of journalists at the launch of the electric BMW iX3, Zipse said: "We have the current system only because it's easy to explain to the public because a combustion engine has an exhaust pipe and to only look at that. That's not enough, just because it's so easy to explain. "If you leave the current system, this industry will halve in size in Europe; it will only be 50% of the size. That's a big consequence for having a simplistic solution that's easy to explain to the public." Zipse said the new regulations were flawed because they only look at tailpipe emissions and only apply to new cars. "That's a very small, tiny bit [of a firm's overall CO2 output]," he said. "We don't look at supply chains. We don't look at fuels. We don't look at how the car was used or what happens to it at the end of its life cycle. We don't look at the structure of corporations and suppliers. Everything is completely ignored, because we only look at tailpipe emissions. "It's a completely absurd system, and the only reason why it exists is because it exists. And you know, status quos are so robust because they're status quos; it doesn't mean that they're very good solutions." BMW has developed its own proposal, which Zipse said is to "replace the electric-only approach with a technology-open approach" that measures overall emissions reductions by a company. "It's right to have a target for CO2 reduction and then let them decide how they do that, whether they do that through more efficient buildings or their car fleet," he said. "Everything counts as long as it reduces CO2: that can be a normal combustion engine, a plug-in hybrid, the new range-extender technology coming from China. The most important factors will still be electric cars, but everything that can contribute to bring down CO2 should contribute already today. "That means you abolish the set date on when you go reach zero CO2. Don't put an end date. That was a misjudgment from the European Union, who said 'we are the frontrunners of very modern, very future-oriented, very climate-orientated, legislation' and believed that other regions like China and the US would follow, as they have for the past 40 years with combustion engine rules. "But this time nobody followed, because this is not very good legislation. So we're the only ones in the world who put a complete ban on one technology without having a better solution. "If we keep that, people will simply keep their old cars for much longer, no replacement, and there's no innovation in the whole industry any more. "We want technology openness and no end date. "Also with EVs, the battery technology is dominated by Asian firms, so there is no substantial industry in Europe, so you must have some kind of localisation requirement if you want to sell electric cars, so you get an advantage if you produce that battery here. "It's a holistic view on what we do, and it's very efficient. It's the most efficient and fastest way to bring down CO2. You don't have an explicit end date. It's a soft landing. "So that's our proposal, a new regime for CO2 reduction, and get more and more stakeholders who understand the advantage of that approach – and it doesn't destroy the industry completely." Zipse insisted that BMW was focused on overall CO2 reduction and said that its proposal would do that faster but would just require a bit of extra complexity. He added that the current EU system doesn't look at reducing CO2 emissions among the cars on the roads today, so there is no incentive to develop e-fuels or similar technology. Zipse also said he is "absolutely against" government subsidies to boost the sale of EVs, such as those reintroduced in the UK recently. "If you scale it up, it's unaffordable and you have to stop it, like we've done in Germany. It was scaled up and there was not enough money," he said. “It's too expensive, so don't do it. Tax incentives are something completely different: tax incentives and subsidising power are the two main ingredients and will contribute to the cost case of the driver."

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BMW boss: 2035 ICE ban overhaul needed or car industry 'will halve'

Oliver Zipse said current regulations, which focus purely on tailpipe emissions, risk distorting the market

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BMW boss: 2035 ICE ban overhaul needed or car industry 'will halve'

Oliver Zipse said current regulations, which focus purely on tailpipe emissions, risk distorting the market

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