The European Commission proposed, on December 16th, to remove the ban on selling cars with combustion engines beyond the year 2035. With this initiative, the Commission intends to make regulations more flexible, allowing, from that year onwards, vehicles with combustion engines to continue to be manufactured and sold in Europe.
Furthermore, the Commission establishes that, as an additional measure, the manufacture and sale of vehicles with combustion engines is limited to 10% of CO emissions.2taking the year 2021 as a reference, which, according to the ICCT organization, were 115 grams of CO2 per kilometer traveled.
This initiative, a turning point for the European Commission to eliminate the ban on the combustion engine, is a first step that must now be negotiated between the Council and the European Parliament to be adopted in its definitive form.
However, despite the fact that we are facing a relaxation of the regulations established so far, from Brussels they emphasize that this new initiative does not put at risk the final objective of achieving climate neutrality, at the latest, in 2050. Therefore, manufacturers must still meet, in 2035, a target of reducing 90% of emissions associated with vehicles with combustion engines.
Regulation based on results, not technologies
Precisely, this reduction in the percentage of emissions is so high that the electric vehicle will, in all probability, be the main protagonist of this transition and its sales will play a “predominant role”. However, and here is the main news, this 10% margin will allow the European Union some flexibility to continue maintaining, albeit in a more minority way, vehicles with combustion engines.
We would be talking about the fact that, beyond 2035, hybrids will be able to continue to be sold plug-invehicles with extended autonomy or even hybrids, as requested by the automotive industry, the components industry and the vast majority of European countries. For these combustion engine vehicles to further contribute to this ambitious reduction in emissions, they must be powered by alternative energy sources, such as biofuels and synthetic fuels, which can reduce the carbon footprint by up to 90%. Furthermore, this type of fuel can quickly and significantly reduce emissions from the existing fleet and in segments that are difficult to electrify, such as heavy transport.
And this is important because we have an increasingly old fleet of vehicles. The average age of the European Union’s vehicle fleet is 12.7 years, according to data from ACEA, although there are countries such as Portugal and Spain that have already exceeded 14 years. And the number of vehicles over 10 years old that circulate on European roads now reaches 150 million, almost 60% of the total number of cars.
Why is this flexibility so important?
One of the reasons why this decision was taken in Brussels is the slowdown in the transition to electric mobility. Although it is true that, in Europe in 2025, around 26% of registered cars were electrified (plug-in hybrids or pure electric), when analyzing penetration in relation to the total fleet, the share represented only 5% in 2024, according to data from ACEA (the European association of vehicle manufacturers).
This flexibility on the part of the European Commission is essential for the automotive industry in Europe, in order to best reconcile the reduction of emissions with maintaining employment and competitiveness.
It is worth remembering, in this sense, that the automotive sector employs 13.6 million people, which represents 8.1% of all industrial jobs in the European Union. Furthermore, it generates around €415 billion in tax revenue for European governments and contributes to the EU a trade surplus of €93.9 billion. The automotive industry is responsible for more than 8% of the European Union’s GDP and annually allocates 84.6 billion euros for investment in R&D, which represents 34% of total investment in research and development in the EU.
However, despite this progress, there are still points to be defined in this commitment to greater flexibility and technological neutrality. In this sense, an approach well-to-wheel (from the well to the wheel), that is, that regulations measure and reward CO2 throughout the entire life cycle (from the production of the fuel to its use in the vehicle) and not just the exhaust, it would be much more effective and realistic.
On the other hand, we still need to define a viable trajectory for light and heavy commercial vehicles, also make the 2030 emissions reduction more flexible, review tax rates at local level, recognize biofuels and synthetic fuels as an additional path to reducing emissions, as well as developing a European plan to stimulate demand and the development of the necessary infrastructure for these alternative fuels. THE Automotive Package of the EU is a golden opportunity to move from a logic of preferred technologies to a logic of demonstrable results. Pure electrification, hybridization in its different versions, renewable fuels and even hydrogen, combined with cutting-edge components and software, will accelerate decarbonization by placing the consumer at the center. And Europe will gain time, competitiveness and resilience in its transition.
Bosch Mobility Vice President of Sales for Spain and Portugal
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