Displaying items by tag: Diesel engines

The plan published by the European Commission, which predicts that Europe will become a climate-neutral continent by 2050, has been hit by lobby groups, car manufacturers, but also EU member states.

The package of measures presented by the European Commission contains 13 legal proposals, which would turn the entire industry that depends on fossil fuels to be carbon neutral by 2050. In addition, emissions of harmful gases are expected to be reduced by 55% by 2030, as well as a complete ban on the sale of cars powered by internal combustion engines by 2035.

This is a major challenge that will be hotly debated in the coming months, given the different starting positions of EU member states. As the AFP agency has learned, serious conflicts within the European Commission have already occurred during the finalization of the proposal.

As for the ban on petrol and diesel, the most objections are from EU members, whose GDP largely depends on the car industry. Most members emphasize that too fast electrification would increase car prices and destroy jobs in favor of Chinese competition, which is ahead of Europe when it comes to battery technology.

Switching to electric vehicles

In the automotive market, which has suffered a severe blow from the coronavirus pandemic, electric vehicles are making strong progress.

"The share of electric cars is 8% of all registered vehicles in Western Europe in the first five months of this year, ie 356,000 vehicles were sold, which is more than in the whole of 2019," says German analyst Matthias Schmidt.

The new regulations will further favor electric vehicles and increasingly lead to the rejection of hybrid and plug-in hybrid systems. The increasingly rapid transition to electric vehicles could be a major challenge for the automotive industry, which employs 14.6 million people in the European Union.

France and Germany have openly opposed the European Commission's plan, so an unnamed French official from the presidency of Emmanuel Macron told the media that the French government supports the targets of reducing emissions by 55% from 2021 to 2030, but also wants to plow -and hybrids remain on the market.

With fewer parts made by the workforce, electric cars are much easier to make. La Plateforme Automobile, a major French lobbying group in the automotive industry, estimates that the state could lose more than half of its jobs in the industry.

German Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer also spoke in a conversation with the German media agency DPA. "I believe that all car and truck manufacturers are aware that stricter specifications are coming. But they must be technically feasible. "More space needs to be provided for plug-in hybrids and a greater focus on hydrogen for trucks."

The European Union is trying to reconcile the demands of the car industry and the need to stop climate change, which is not an easy task.

"The future of internal combustion engines should be balanced between 2035, which is too early from an industry and society perspective, and 2040, when it will still be too late from a climate perspective," said Pascal Canfin, chairman of the European Environment Committee. parliament.

In addition to the ban on petrol and diesel, there has been a conflict over the introduction of the use of sustainable fuels, which are much more expensive. Another conflicting topic is the introduction of a fuel tax for flights within the EU, which is opposed by tourist destinations such as Spain, Greece and Portugal.

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German carmaker Volkswagen will suspend sales of cars powered by internal combustion engines in Europe by 2035 and focus entirely on electric cars, while this change will arrive later in the US and China, said one of the members of the Board of Directors of the VW Group.

"We are leaving the market for cars powered by internal combustion engines in Europe between 2033 and 2035, and later in the United States and China," said Klaus Zellmer, Member of the Board of Management of the Volkswagen Group in charge of sales.

"As far as South America and Africa are concerned, conventionally powered cars will stay there for a bit longer due to the fact that there are no legal frameworks that provide time limits for achieving zero emissions," he added.

In addition, Zellmer told the German newspaper Muenchner Merkur that by 2050 at the latest, the entire Volkswagen range should be completely CO2 neutral.

The idea is that in Europe, by 2030, electric cars will make up 70% of Volkswagen's total sales, which would allow them to avoid the severe penalties imposed by the European Union for all car manufacturers that exceed the CO2 allowance.

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Apart from the fact that the French manufacturer will no longer invest in the development of new diesels, it also announced that it limits the maximum speed to 180 km / h for new models.

At the recent Renault Group shareholders' meeting in Paris, CEO Luca de Meo also announced the maximum speed limit for all future models coming from this company.

"Speed ​​on all our cars will be limited to 180 km / h," said de Meo, who has led Renault since last year.

He also announced that the first model equipped with a new electronic device that limits the maximum speed will be a serial version of the Renault Mégane eVision concept, ie the Renault Mégane E model announced for the next year, 2022. Moreover, the blockade on it will be even more extreme, ie it will be set at 160 km / h.

In addition to the device that will block the maximum speed (and will not be able to unlock), the electric SUV will be the first Renault equipped with another limiting system - automatic speed control called Safety Coach - active speed limiter, which will comply with speed limits and geolocation data, will take into account the road profile, examples of dangerous curves, weather conditions…

De Meo claims that he was led to these moves by statistics according to which speed is still responsible for a third of all traffic accidents with a fatal outcome, so he hopes that the restriction will significantly help increase road safety.

Furthermore, what Renault has developed from diesel engines - it has developed, because it will no longer invest in them, but will improve the current ones to the level as much as possible in terms of environmental standards.

CEO De Meo also confirmed that he will no longer invest money in the development of new generation diesel engines, and whether that means that Renault diesels will not exist in the Euro 7 era remains to be seen. However, seeing how the demand for hybrid and electric cars in Europe exceeds diesel, it will not be a surprise if French models with diesel engines disappear from the market in 2025.

Admittedly, diesel has already been discontinued in many models, and even Dacia has begun rejecting diesels in its latest generation of models in Europe.

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The end of the internal combustion engine (SUS) is in sight for many car manufacturers from the Volkswagen Group, given that this concern is already making a big turn towards the sale of electric vehicles, so some of the most famous models will one day be on "for shooting" sheets.

That the end for internal combustion engines in Audi is near, the head of Audi's management, Markus Duesmann, told the media, as reported by zimo.dnevnik.hr.

"EU plans for even stricter Euro 7 standards for CO2 emissions pose a huge technical challenge, which clearly limits the continued use of internal combustion engines. We will no longer develop new SUS engines, but we will adapt existing ones and bring them in line with the new CO2 guidelines, ”said Duesmann.

However, it is impossible to predict which versions of the SUS engine will be the first to die out in Audi, or in the VW Group, given how unpredictable the business and environmental conditions are. One thing is for sure - when they start to die out, some entire brands will die out with them.

For now, Audi has officially unveiled two fully electric models - the e-tron GT / RS sedan, which you can read more about here, and then the e-tron Q4 SUV. The sporty TT and R8 models, whose sales are slow, will be inherited by smaller sports electric cars.

The Q4 e-tron should get and buy a version called the Sportback. This will be followed by the replacement of the A8 sedan, and from the old Audi names, it is assumed that the Allroad, Quattro and RS will experience the electric era and come to life in it.

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