Over 150 executives from Europe’s electric car sector have signed a letter urging the EU to keep its 2035 zero-emission target for cars and vans.

Warning that a delay could stall Europe’s EV market, allow foreign rivals to gain share and undermine confidence, this letter contradicts an earlier missive in late August from European car manufacturers' and automotive suppliers' associations saying that the EU target of 100 per cent reduction for cars by 2035 was not feasible.

The EU President is set to discuss the future of the automotive sector soon, including the transition to zero-emission and the ongoing international tariff battles where additional tariffs on Chinese-manufactured EVs can be up to a maximum of 45.3 per cent.

European carmakers sold 38 per cent more electric cars in the first seven months of the year according to Transport and Environment (T&E) with makers including BMW, Renault and Volkswagen expected to meet their 2025-27 emissions targets, according to T&E’s EV Progress Report.

However, Mercedes-Benz, which holds the presidency of the EU auto lobby ACEA and is the loudest opponent of the EU targets, is the only European car manufacturer that would fail to reach them on its own and would need to pay other makers to purchase credits from them in a so-called pooling deal.

The EU is under pressure from some carmakers to weaken their 2030 and 2035 emissions targets and earlier this year it gave a major concession to the industry by extending the 2025 target deadline by two years. This two-year extension of the targets will now lead to two million fewer electric cars being sold between 2025 and 2027 in T&E estimates. As a result, T&E has called on the EU Commission to stand firm over the 2030 and 2035 targets when it hosts the strategic dialogue on the future of the automotive industry this Friday.

“European carmakers are living in cloud cuckoo land if they think China will stop innovating while they try to prolong the technology of the past. If the European Commission allows car manufacturers to stall on EV progress, Europe will lose ground on another key industry to global competitors. We need a European automotive industry that leads on one of the critical technologies of the 21st century, not one that puts us on the path to becoming a car museum,” Lucien Mathieu, T&E cars director, said.

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