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In Europe, it has been decided to review the ban on the sale of cars with internal combustion engines. It is proposed to supplement it with alternative options for reducing harmful emissions, including the use of synthetic fuels and plug-in hybrids.
At the end of January, speaking at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that electric mobility is the future, and those who think otherwise want to harm European industry. This should be understood as the previous course of changing the technological landscape, but since the crisis in the industry can lead to social upheavals, it was decided to help the auto industry a little.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the launch of a so-called strategic dialogue — regular meetings with industry representatives, major shareholders and trade unions to work out solutions and determine the next steps. The first such meeting took place on January 30. It was attended by 22 companies, including Renault, Volvo, Volkswagen, Valeo and Tesla.
The anti-crisis plan based on the results of this meeting is promised to be submitted in early March, but it is already clear that the goals for reducing harmful emissions will remain unchanged, but their achievement will be assessed over longer time intervals.
There were also those who were dissatisfied with neither the format nor the composition of the participants. For example, representatives of the Civic Democratic Party of the Czech Republic (ODS) stated that the meeting did not include key representatives of the industry and that the events generally looked more like a PR move to score more points before the elections in Germany than a real attempt to save the automotive industry. But if this is not the case, the ODS will be pleasantly surprised.
