Gerrit Marx thinks push to e-fuels and EVs will “turn Europe into Cuba,” its roads dominated by old cars
<!––>
by Chris Chilton
March 29, 2023 at 06:50
<!––>
by Chris Chilton
<!–
–>
Rich petrolheads and supercar companies might be rejoicing at the news that an exemption for e-fuels has given the combustion engine a stay of execution in Europe after 2035, but not everyone is cheering.
And it’s not just climate activists who are less than enthusiastic about the news. So is Gerrit Marx, CEO of Iveco, the multinational company responsible for putting thousands of combustion-engined heavy commercial trucks on the world’s roads each year.
Marx called synthetic fuels “the champagne of propulsion” in an interview with Bloomberg, and said that while they might appear to rich Porsche and Ferrari drivers, the high cost of filling up means they aren’t a realistic way for Europe’s vehicle manufacturers to reach carbon neutrality.
“If you have a Ferrari or if you drive your Porsche Turbo once a weekend, you’re not going to care whether a liter costs €5 ($5.40) or €8 ($8.70), but that is not a fuel for the future,” the German boss told reporters at Iveco’s HQ in Italy.
New cars powered by e-fuels will be exempt from EU’s 2035 ICE ban
Marx, who has also made clear he’s not a fan of tough new Euro 7 emissions legislation due to come into force in the next couple of years, described the governance coming from the European Union’s political base in Brussels as “dysfunctional,” claiming that there was a need for greater coordination between agencies in the EU bloc tasked with managing technology, emissions and transportation issues.
advertisement scroll to continue
The exec warned that a push towards expensive electric vehicles and equally expensive e-fuels won’t result in a mass switch away from existing combustion vehicles as the EU hopes, but could have the opposite effect, forcing drivers and fleet operators to hang on to older, more polluting cars and trucks. “We will turn Europe into Cuba, where you see old cars on the roads,” Marx said, because regular people won’t be able to afford the new alternatives.
The Iveco boss also says that a switch to e-fuels won’t help wean the world off fossil fuels supplied from the Middle East. “Guess who wants to become the number one e-fuel maker — Saudi Arabia,” he told Bloomberg. “We are just replacing one source with the other, but from the same region.”
<!–
–> 
–> 
