Pleas for Turning Away from the Combustion Engine Phase-out

Day 2 of the Engine Congress: The combustion engine will continue to be needed, especially in the transport sector. To reduce CO2 emissions, defossilized fuels will be necessary. 

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In the first keynote of the second day of the congress, Prof. Dr. Andrea Wechsler (CDU), MEP, spoke about Europe and the future of the automotive industry. She emphasized that there was a strong politically driven trend towards electric mobility in development, particularly in Germany, while important lead markets, including China, were pursuing a much broader, technology-neutral approach. 

For Wechsler, the current discussions and political changes also clearly show that Europe must face global political and industrial challenges more independently, as previous partnerships are no longer necessarily reliable. According to her, the framework conditions must be clearly redefined and designed to be technologically independent in order to reduce dependencies on raw material and product supply chains. In her view, the principles of the social market economy are now anchored in European politics. It has been understood that the transformation of industry cannot be guided politically, and that it is merely the task of politics to set framework conditions. Another new development is the streamlining of the supply chain due diligence law to make takeovers more competitive.

Climate Targets Can Only be Achieved with Defossilized Fuels

In his keynote speech, Pierpaolo Biffali of the Iveco Group emphasized that the transport sector is responsible for 30 % of CO₂ emissions. However, Europe currently has the most coherent strategy for reducing these emissions, with intensive work being carried out in the main areas of further developing combustion engines, defossilization and electrification, and developing hydrogen technologies. In the foreseeable future, the combustion engine will continue to dominate in transportation, even if it is partially electrified and certain applications can and will be fully electrified. 

Ultimately, however, the customer does not make an emotional purchase, but purely on the basis of professional aspects. The total cost of ownership and thus the price, the productivity from payload and durability, and the product quality are crucial. Environmental aspects are considered to be of secondary importance. For the foreseeable future, diesel and methane will remain by far the most cost-effective solutions in terms of TCO. Although BEV trucks can be very efficient and maintenance costs are low, it is extremely difficult to convince customers of the technology. Therefore, the most realistic way to achieve the reduction targets seems to be to defossilize the fuel.

Alain Mathuren of FuelsEurope presented the results of the study "Monitoring Methods for the Use of Renewable Fuels". In a first group, attempts were made to find clear definitions for renewable fuels; a second group examined possibilities for monitoring the use of such fuels in vehicles. He presented numerous physical and virtual methods that would be suitable for monitoring. A third group looked at taxation and the possibilities of tax credits for the fuels used. However, numerous questions arose during the work, such as how to deal with violations, the unavailability of corresponding fuels and country-specific legislation. Follow-up projects will be necessary to find satisfactory answers, but the first step at least showed that monitoring the use of climate-neutral fuels seems to be feasible.

Internal Combustion Engine Plays an Important Role in Climate Protection

In the subsequent round of questions, Alain Mathuren clearly advocated supporting all technologies when asked whether CO₂-neutral fuels can be credited. In addition to actual e-fuels, whose ramp-up will probably take a long time, biogenic fuels should also be considered, since these are already available and could be used directly. However, investment security must be in place to give further manufacturers an incentive to enter production. In this case, however, incentives should be used instead of subsidies. One such incentive could be the recognition of the CO₂ reduction potential of these fuels, which could lead to a significant price reduction through tax exemptions for the neutral share.

Wechsler did not want to comment on a reversal of the combustion ban, as it was outside of her decision-making authority. However, it is clear that the combustion engine plays an important role in a technologically open development.

12^th International Engine Congress 2025

The 12th International Engine Congress 2025 organized by ATZlive and VDI Wissensforum is the meeting place for the powertrain and sustainable fuels community. The hybrid event took place on February 25 and 26 in Baden-Baden or via live stream. The conference is based on three thematic pillars, namely the parallel sessions "passenger car engine technology", "commercial vehicle engine technology" and "sustainable fuels & energy".

This is a partly automated translation of this German article.