Von der Leyen's overturn: combustion engine ban overturned (article in German)

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Von der Leyen's overturn: combustion engine ban overturned (article in German)

The report, which was brought to the attention of major media outlets by the website and video channel of the Austrian newspaper Neue Kronen Zeitung, was is accompanied by a table of emissions by source. Mainly because of the dirty emission production of the battery, a normal electric car will only be emission equal to a petrol car after 150,000 km, in the case of a diesel car after more than 200,000 km. Traditional petrol and diesel-powered combustion cars are the best performers in terms of emissions, while e-cars rank second to last, with the worst performer in terms of emissions being the so-called grey hydrogen drive produced from natural gas. The EU leadership is thus turning its existing zero-emission policy by 180 degrees in favour of electric cars. This is the beginning of the end of the blind bet on electro-mobility, which was, is and will be associated with enormous confusion and, above all, astronomical costs. See also:

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What is behind this turnaround, which citizen gets upset at the dance of the Euro billions?

First and foremost, it is about voters and elections. Von der Leyen has enjoyed her position as "the most powerful woman in Europe" so much that she wants to continue as EC President for another five years after the European Parliament elections in June. Yet this gynaecologist by training was apparently kicked out of her home German CDU party into the EU institutions because of her incompetence and dramatic failures, particularly as German Defence Minister. She became famous for having the world's most expensive uniforms tailored for pregnant female soldiers in the German army. She now wants to forget her last five years of pushing a green agenda and please as many voters as possible. Even those on the right, whom the politician of the avowedly conservative right-wing CDU has completely forgotten in recent years, but whose will to power has been fundamentally strengthened this year by the 66-year-old.

What is shocking, and a desperate testimony to the dysfunctional democracy in the EU leadership, is that there is actually no relevant counter-candidate to Leyen so far.

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In recent months, the desperate bosses of Western carmakers have resorted to what any moderately erudite marketing executive would warn them against: in the face of a sharp drop in new orders for electric cars, they promise customers that they will offer better performance from their battery-powered cars "in a few years". Such utterly counterproductive marketing of future products reflects the desperation of VW's management, which has staked the entire fate of the global car concern on winning electromobility. And the results are not coming in the face of hundreds of billions of dollars of investment, with orders for VW Group EVs half this year compared to last year.

Volkswagen announced in March this year that it was developing a €25,000 (£612,000) all-electric car, said to be launched by 2025. It will have a range of up to 450 kilometres on a single charge and its battery will charge from 10 to 80 per cent in about 20 minutes. At a recent automotive conference organised by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, VW chief Oliver Blume also confirmed that "...in the second half of this decade" the group could start producing an electric car for EUR 20,000.

No decision on production has yet been made. But the concern boss knows well where the electric cars have a cost Achilles heel: it is the very expensive battery, which Blume would like to halve in price by joint production. This is countered by the rising price of raw materials, which are in short supply around the world for ambitious decarbonisation targets. At the same time, Western technologists want to reduce dependence on strategic raw materials and rare earths for battery production, which are controlled by China, which now produces 77% of all e-car batteries in the world.