The Glasgow climate summit has resulted in a commitment from several major car manufacturers, although not all of them were there. The commitment not to sell more vehicles with internal combustion engines in 2040 is globally, an important nuance.
The European Union will be one of the first large markets to abandon internal combustion -at least in passenger cars- by 2035, little by little more countries will follow. Between 2030 and 2050 this process will go global, with its termination in less developed countries, perhaps even later.
New Zealand and two US states: California and New York have joined the anti-combustion agreement. The entire country is still not getting its fingers caught with such a goal, nor is Japan. But several manufacturers are missing from the list: BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen (as a group). Although they have commitments for Europe, globally they prefer to be cautious.
There is a very uncomfortable reality when it comes to talking about electrification, and it is that it is not universal. There are countries in the world where the installation of electric chargers is not feasible to travel their geography from end to end, with much more important priorities. Combustion will continue to be necessary if only for its autonomy.
Iranian highway – Photo: Hamed Saber (CC BY)
We can find cases of developing countries that complete the transition before developed powers, especially if they have access to renewable energy in abundance, and take advantage of the situation to eliminate their dependence on hydrocarbons.
And even thinking about those markets, where the elecrification will be very complicated, there are manufacturers that have not adhered to the commitment. It may sound like an excuse, since the less developed nations as a whole do not represent a precisely high volume.
Let’s look at an example, the Volkswagen Group, and counting on the data for 2019, the last normal year and without interruptions in supplies. Of the 10.97 million deliveries that year, the whole of South America accounted for 608,600 deliveries. In Asia, if we remove China, 296,500 units. In Eastern and Central Europe, excluding Russia, 572,200 units. Africa is not even mentioned.
Volkswagen amarok
The African market, with the least motorized continent in the world, some 660,000 passenger cars were sold in 2020, the production being slightly higher than that figure, since Algeria and Morocco export thousands of cars to foreign markets such as Europe. Doing business like this is complicated.
In any case, no matter how much less developed nations insist on liquidating the internal combustion of new registrations, there is still a very large fleet that will continue to need fossil fuels. You cannot replace that demand with biofuels or synthetic equivalents.
The signatories of the agreement hardly believe that most countries with low per capita income are very important clients. Nor will they have done it to avoid leaving that piece of cake to Chinese manufacturers. In fact, it would not be easy for them to justify investment and development to produce low volumes only with those types of customers in mind.
Mahindra Thar
It would make sense for them to keep well established and proven designs alive. We have seen it in numerous examples. Volkswagen stopped making the Beetle in 2003, the T2 in 2014, and the first-generation Golf in 2009. There are more examples, such as Nissan Tsuru, Peugeot 405, and so on. Clearly outdated designs have been selling until recently. It was legal.
On the other hand, there is a tricky question. For developed nations to have been, they have had to burn fossil fuels in the wild, pollute and emit CO2. Developing countries also want … develop, and doing it ‘eco-sustainably’ can be especially painful and time consuming for many of them.
Definitely, the ecological transition will go at two speeds, normal and reducing. If some manufacturers unilaterally choose to eliminate options from the market, others will continue to do so as long as no regulations prevent them. Globalization does not always bring good things.