(Bloomberg) -- Volkswagen AG said the European Union’s deal on e-fuels will help with special applications such as emergency vehicles and low-volume models like Porsche’s 911 sports car, following an agreement over the weekend on landmark regulation to make cars carbon neutral by 2035.
Europe’s biggest carmaker remains committed to the electrification of its lineup with a goal of EVs accounting for around 10% of sales this year and more than half at the end of the decade, VW said Monday. Germany’s deal with the EU on Saturday paves the way for a vote on the law set for Tuesday.
“We see e-fuels as a useful addition to the existing fleet of combustion engines and for special applications,” the company said in a statement. “E-fuels from renewable energies are a contribution to sustainable mobility — the agreement gives manufacturers and above all consumers a clear perspective for planning.”
VW rose 1.8% at 4:50 p.m. in Frankfurt trading, taking gains this year to 4.1%.
The EU’s deal means that Germany can formally approve an agreement reached in October that requires new cars to be zero-emissions, a key pillar in the EU’s plans to reach climate neutrality by 2050. A vote this month, which was expected to be a simple procedure, was delayed due to objections from Volker Wissing’s pro-business FDP party, the junior member of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s governing alliance.
Germany’s VDA car lobby said it supported a deal that allows several technologies to reduce CO2 emissions with significant challenges that need to be overcome to scale up production.
“Now we have to enable e-fuel output at scale and at competitive prices, which can only happen with large range of strategic decisions,” the lobby group said in a statement. “Brussels and Berlin need a maximum of stable energy partnerships in the many countries that have excellent conditions to produce e-fuels.”
Volkswagen’s efforts on synthetic fuels are led by Porsche AG, which doesn’t plan to make its lucrative 911 model with a plug, with a pilot plant in Chile. VW and Porsche Chief Executive Officer Oliver Blume came under fire last year, boasting at an internal event that he successfully lobbied for e-fuels to be included in the new German government’s coalition agreement.
(An earlier version of the stories corrected the proportion of EV sales by 2030.)
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