A stay of execution

If a week is a long time in politics, 13 years is an unfathomable eternity. And if you thought that the European Union’s ban on the sale of combustion-engined cars, including hybrids, was unlikely to survive unchanged between its announcement in 2022 and its introduction in 2035, you’re probably about to be proven right.

Speaking off the record, a number of sources at CEO and board level at European car makers and suppliers have told us they expect that deadline to be pushed back by five years, and that the announcement is imminent. By the time you read this, it might already have been made.

Does this mean that the pure internal-combustion engines beloved of enthusiasts have been saved, and the existential risk to European car makers from an EU-enforced switch to EVs has evaporated? Not quite. Five years either way doesn’t make a huge difference to their long-term plans: it’s less than one model cycle. The UK has changed its own cut-off for pure combustion-car sales three times since its introduction in 2017. It currently stands at 2030, with hybrids granted another five years: that will surely have to change if the EU pushes back to 2040 for both.