Italy to ban sales of new ICEs in 2035

Italy’s government has decided to ban new passenger cars with combustion engines from 2035 in line with the EU Commission’s plans. For light commercial vehicles, this is to apply from 2040. This has now been decided by the Italian government’s Committee for the Ecological Transition (CITE).

With this, the Draghi government follows a number of European states that want to ban the new sale of vehicles with combustion engines from 2030, 2035 or 2040, including France, the Netherlands, Norway or Great Britain. The committee stressed that the domestic automotive industry has sufficient lead time to prepare for the production changeover.

It further said in an accompanying statement: “In this process it is necessary to implement all the functional solutions for the decarbonisation of transport in a logic of ‘technological neutrality’, thus enhancing not only electric vehicles, but also the potential of hydrogen, as well as recognizing – for the transition – the essential role of biofuels, in which Italy is building a cutting-edge domestic supply chain.”

The government did not name any concrete measures to push the transport transition in the course of the announcement on the phasing out of the internal combustion engine. However, it had only increased the eMobility funding budget in October and in the meantime raised the funding rates over the summer.

Meanwhile, the Italian government continues to strive for the desired exemption from the combustion engine phase-out from 2035 for domestic sports car manufacturers such as Ferrari and Lamborghini. The government’s statement reads: “As far as niche manufacturers are concerned, specific measures may possibly be evaluated with the European Commission within the Community rules.”

italy24news.com, mite.gov.it (statement from the Ministero della Transizione Ecologica, in Italian)