Well done Germany
Sehr schön!
My fear is that history will repeat itself. Germany was leading in solar, subsidies got cut too early, the industry died and now we produce non. German automakers are already trying to go back on their promises of stopping ICE car production. But I guess this article doesn’t differentiate between EV’s and hybrids so maybe the hybrid strategy will work out in the end.
The difference was that Germany actually paid a lot of subsidies for buying solar systems. This is very different today, were EVs do not get any direct subsidies from the German government. Furthermore Germany was importing solar panels at the time, but it is a net exporter of EVs today.
Add to that the ban on fossil fuel cars in the EU in 2035. It takes years for a large manufacturer to go to full EV production. Things like battery factories, new production plants or changes in old plants need to be started today, to be ready for a full ban in 2035. Same story for the development of new models. Things like battery developments take some time to do in a lab, then the mass scale manufacturing process needs to be developed, the actual factory built and then they can be produced. All manufacturers know this and are preparing for it. So unless the 2035 ban is lifted basically now, this is going to happen.
So to lift it you need a qualified majority in the EU council. This currently requires 15 members(55% of the members) with 65% of the EUs population to pass. The law has been passed relativly recently requiring the same hurdles to be passed. So you need to convince a good number of members to change the law. Germany has a bit less then 19% of the EUs population and if France joins in, this would be possible. At least those are the two most likely. If France does not vote massivly right wing in the next election this is not going to happen. I hope they do not, but we will see. For Germany that would require a right wing coaltion or a conservative social democrat coaltion to get passed. Possible but also not a gurantee. Especially since elections are in a bit more then a year. Spain just had elections and Italy and Poland were against the ban in the first place and also take longer to change government.
