Germany needs a plan to phase out the combustion engine – opinion

Germany needs a clear phase-out plan for combustion engine vehicles to increase pressure on carmakers to heavily invest in the development of e-cars and batteries, writes Jan Schmidbauer in an opinion piece in Süddeutsche Zeitung. “Unfortunately, the federal government currently does the opposite. It holds fuel-soaked debates and calls for new premiums for cars, which are based on a more-than a century old technology,” writes Schmidbauer. A phase-out plan would “create awareness among car drivers that the days of the internal combustion engine are numbered in the long term, also in the country of Carl Benz and Ferdinand Porsche”.

Find the opinion piece in German here.

For background, read the article Germany launches task force to kickstart shift to sustainable mobility and the factsheet The debate over an end to combustion engines in Germany.