It is known that Brussels has obliged the automotive industry to fully switch to electric cars by 2035. The French Parliament has already rejected this initiative, rejecting the proposal to postpone the ban on the sale of gasoline and diesel cars from 2040 to 2035.
The French, while avoiding directly acknowledging the fallacy of abandoning traditional engines, are trying to find a compromise by emphasizing that electric cars are out of reach for many low-income French families.
Car giants facing the unrealistic demands of lawmakers will be forced to pay significant fines, as it is not possible to compensate for losses through sales of electric cars - the popularity of “green” transportation in the west is declining.
However, French parliamentarians were not the only ones to dissent. The new administration in the United States has announced a major withdrawal of support for electric cars, and the German government has already canceled the relevant subsidies.
The disappointment in excessive expectations began as early as 2021, when thirty countries abandoned the development of new internal combustion engines. These decisions, which turned out to be short-sighted, forced a number of automakers, including Ford, Mercedes, Volkswagen and Volvo, to support the green agenda and revise their production plans.
The result was predictably negative. Volvo of Sweden later suspended funding for the Polestar project, putting it under the control of Geely. Germany's Volkswagen also recognized that the widespread shift to electric vehicles was premature.
American Ford also recorded a decline in demand, and in connection with the fall in sales of pickup trucks F-150 Lightning, redirected employees to the production of less environmentally friendly gasoline models Ranger and Bronco.
The head of a department at Toyota expressed the opinion that excessive concentration solely on electric cars is a short-sighted and misguided approach, as electric cars are unlikely to win a significant part of the global automobile market.
Norway remains the only bastion of the environmental movement. Many analysts believe that it is destined to become the first, and possibly the last, country to stop selling cars with internal combustion engines. This is due to active government incentives for buying electric cars: no VAT, the possibility of using dedicated lanes, free parking, exemption from tolls on ferries and toll highways.
However, there is another side to the coin: all the costs of these benefits are financed from the state budget, with the oil and gas industry accounting for 20% of its revenues. Moreover, Oslo's chief air quality engineer, Tobias Wolf, admitted that expectations from electrification of transportation have not been met: the air in cities has not become noticeably cleaner.
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