European automakers asked the EU Commission to review and potentially modify the bloc’s 2035 all-EV target at an auto summit on Friday, but the commission is reportedly standing firm despite the industry’s big push this week for more leniency.

In 2021, Europe announced a target to go all-electric by 2035. It was part of a greater package of climate reforms designed to target a 55% reduction in CO₂ emissions by 2030 and full climate neutrality by 2050.

But a lot has changed since then. European EV sales and market share have continued to rise, but even more importantly, Chinese EV sales have accelerated rapidly… much faster than those in Europe. In 2020, Europe had 11% plug-in (BEV + PHEV) market share and China was at 5%; but in the interim, China leapfrogged Europe by hitting 47% plug-in share in 2024, while Europe only reached 24%. BEV-only numbers are lower, but BEVs still outsell PHEVs significantly.

This has been accompanied by a significant rise in Chinese EV exports as well. As China’s EV manufacturing effort ramps up rapidly due to forward-looking industrial strategy and encouragement of EV startups, the country has started to produce advanced EVs so cheaply that slow-moving Western automakers are finding it hard to compete (after putting in little effort to do so).

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And so, what are the automakers to do? They’ve already tried nothing, and they’re all out of ideas. So they’re doing what they usually do: going to the teacher to beg for an extension.

Automakers make a final push for leniency on EU emissions

Friday’s auto summit was reportedly the third and last “crisis meeting” between automakers and the EU Commission, timed at the end of the largest European auto show, IAA Munich. Automakers and some governments spent the week agitating for leniency on CO₂ targets and to extend the life of the internal combustion engine.

The EU reportedly agreed to an early review of its 2035 targets, but otherwise stood firm, stating that “no matter what, the future of cars is electric.” The reforms included a mechanism by which the EU could review its progress towards its targets, with the review set to happen in 2026, but that review will reportedly now happen this year.

The argument is that automakers don’t have enough time to get up to 100% EV sales by 2035, having only advanced from 11%->24% between 2020 and 2024. But despite automakers’ protestations, China’s move from 5%->47% in the same time frame shows that a lot more is possible than European automakers are letting on.

The review comes after Europe already loosened rules for automakers earlier this year. In March, the Commission gave automakers “breathing room,” slightly extending the deadline for emissions compliance for the 2025-2027 model years (which they now seem on track to meet).

Ironically, this “breathing room” for automakers would result in less “breathing room” for actual humans with lungs, who will have to breathe more pollution as a result of the automakers’ inability to stop poisoning everyone.

Despite that Europe is reportedly standing firm on its targets, it may offer some minor flexibility in its review.

What form the reviewed targets might take is not yet clear. But some automakers and government entities like Germany’s CDU (whose leader, Friedrich Merz, said the auto industry should “not limit itself to a single solution”) are asking for “solutions” that still rely on combustion, and extend the lifespan of polluting, complex and wasteful gasoline engines.

Automakers want clean fuels which… aren’t actually clean

EU President Ursula Von der Leyen reportedly says that the EU will hold firm, but did not rule out potential exceptions for plug-in hybrid vehicles with primarily use electricity but have a combustion engine as a fallback.

However, allowing plug-in hybrids would be folly, given research released just this week from Transport & Environment showing plug-in hybrids emit five times as many emissions on average in the real-world as they do in testing regimes.

Another common request made by automakers has involved “biofuels” or “e-fuels,” clean-sounding names for something that is still inherently wasteful. The EU has already made an exception for these fuels in its 2035 rules.

While synthetic “e-fuels” created from renewable electricity are principally carbon-free and are obviously better than fossil-based fuels, internal combustion engines are still desperately inefficient, with 20-30% efficiency, as compared to ~90% efficiency for electric motors. Putting that electricity directly into a BEV is a far more efficient way to convert electricity to motion than using the electricity to create synthetic fuels, then shipping and inefficiently combusting those fuels.

For biofuels, which are also carbon neutral, the land and water required is an order of magnitude larger than what’s needed for renewable electricity sources used to fuel electric vehicles. In order to fuel all the world’s cars with biofuels, we would need about twice as much land and rainfall as is available on Earth.

And while it’s nice to think that all these combustion engines might suddenly convert to using biofuels, that seems unlikely to happen. So, continuing to build these engines means they will continue to combust things that, mathematically, must remain underground and uncombusted.

Meanwhile, climate change continues to accelerate as human emissions continue to rise. This is the largest and objectively the most important challenge that humanity has ever created for itself, and one that Europe needs to confront boldly.

Finally, one auto CEO speaks the truth

Thankfully, somebody pointed out the ridiculousness of this debate.

Audi CEO Gernot Döllner said this week that the constant bickering and begging by the auto industry is “counterproductive.”

“I don’t know of any better technology than the electric car for advancing CO2 reduction in transportation in the coming years. But even apart from climate protection, the electric car is simply the better technology,” said Döllner, who said that the constant debates over whether inferior combustion engines should be preserved are “counterproductive and unsettle customers.”

Meanwhile, Mercedes CEO Ola Källenius, who also heads the European Automobile Manufacturer’s Association (ACEA), went exactly in the wrong direction with his comments, saying that “hybrids and efficient high-tech combustion engines should remain part of the way forward, otherwise we risk acceptance and jobs.”

The actual reality of the situation is that Europe will lose jobs if it fails on the EV transition… which it already is, and will fail even harder with the complacency that Källenius and Merz have asked for. Doubling down on combustion will result in failure in the face of superior competition from overseas.

At least one CEO, Döllner, actually seems to get it. Although, he did become CEO shortly before Audi tamped down on its EV push, so maybe he needs to listen to his own words.

An unnamed European official, quoted by Euronews, also injected some reality into the situation. After Friday’s talks, the person said “even if the Commission took down these targets, global competition would set them for the industry,” recognizing that superior Chinese EVs are already out-competing European brands and that competition may result in change regardless of any futzing about the automakers beg the EU to do.

A retreat would surrender to Chinese competition

The current situation in Europe involves rising competition from the aforementioned Chinese EV exports. While Chinese share of European EV sales is still rather low at around 11%, that share has been growing rapidly. And it’s growing because, despite the tariff Europe levies on Chinese EVs, these cars still offer quite a good value proposition, and some have better software features than those available from slower-moving traditional automakers.

This is one thing that has European automakers scared about the EV transition. But instead of recognizing that they are behind and need to catch up, they are falling back to the default mode for large businesses – begging government to slow things down so that they can maintain their dominant position. But that hasn’t worked before, and it won’t work now, and thankfully Europe seems not to be taking the bait.

The only way that European automakers can confront the rising challenge from Chinese EVs, and work to solve climate change which their products are the largest single cause of, and which the transportation industry specifically is not doing enough to fix, is by committing more seriously to the EV transition, not by begging the government to let them move more slowly.

Notably, the same sort of begging is not happening in China. When new regulations threatened to destroy the market for ICE cars in China and leave millions of cars unsellable, Chinese auto dealers did ask for a reprieve… but only for six months, in order to sell off existing inventory, while also calling on all levels of industry and government to take the EV transition more seriously, rather than asking anyone to pump the brakes on it.

And none of these Chinese EVs are having any trouble with emissions limits, either. They are not poisoning the lungs (and every other organ) of Europeans – that’s being done by the combustion engine makers.

The only answer is to accelerate, not decelerate

All the above said, Europe’s target probably should be reviewed… because 2035 is not early enough. The faster we work to confront climate change, the better. No matter how expensive it seems it might be to solve the problem that we collectively have spent the last century and a half causing (and have supercharged in the last 30 years), that cost will only get higher as time goes on and as more damage is done.

Many studies have pointed out that the faster we solve this problem, the cheaper it will be to fix, so every moment lost as a result of the auto industry begging for more time only represents more cost, death, and disruption for humanity and for all species on Earth.

Lobbying to slow down the transition therefore does not just harm European industry, but also would harm all life on Earth. And, as Audi’s CEO pointed out, debate over the simple truth of electric drive’s superiority is counterproductive. The European Commission is right to hold firm on its targets, and should rebuff any further pleas to weaken them from the auto industry, the very industry that got itself, and all of us, into this problem in the first place.

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Drive Electric Month kicks off this week with nearly 200 online and in-person events celebrating electric vehicles over the course of the next month. Events will be held for the next several weekends all across the US, plus a few in Canada and one in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Drive Electric Month is an annual event organized by Plug In America, the Electric Vehicle Association, EVHybridNoire, Drive Electric USA, and the Sierra Club. This is the event’s 15th year. It started in the US as National Drive Electric Week, but for the last few years, some events have been hosted in other countries as well, and now the event has expanded to cover most of the month of September, with a few events in October as well.

These events are an opportunity for prospective EV buyers to talk directly with EV owners about the experience of owning an electric car, and EV owners to network with each other and share tips. The dealership experience is not ideal for many EV shoppers, so unfiltered conversations with EV owners can be a great way to learn.

Each event is organized by local EV advocates, and they range in size from small parking lot meetups and local EV parades to large festivals with lots of booths from nearby car dealers and green businesses. Many events have live music, family-friendly activities, food trucks and the like.

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Drive Electric Month has a map and list of events happening over the course of the month. Most events are in-person, but there are some webinar-style online events that you can attend to hear about various topics related to electric vehicles if you can’t get to any local evels. You can also search for events near you.

Be sure to click through to each individual event’s page to see what your local events will look like, what types of EVs might be in attendance, and register your interest.

Here’s a sample of some of the events happening over the course of the month:

• Oregon Electric Vehicle Association (OEVA) Test Drive & Information Expo in Portland, Oregon on September 13, 10am-4pm: Along with the standard test drives and car displays, this event will have a number of gas to electric conversions and antique EVs on display. It’s happening at the Daimler Truck North America headquarters, and some of the space will be used for seminars and presentations.
• Drive Electric Month Oahu in Aiea, Hawaii on September 13, 10am-2pm: The largest Hawaiian event is just outside of Honolulu, but there are events on four Hawaiian islands this year, with the others in Lihue on Kauai on Sep13, Hilo on the Big Island on Sep27, and Kahului on Maui on Oct11.

• Mesa EV Ride & Drive in Mesa, Arizona on September 20, 8am-12pm: A veteran group of organizers is bringing the EV experience to Mesa Community College on Saturday, Sept. 20. People can test drive a variety of models, talk to real owners and learn how and where to charge. 
• Jimmy Buffett Son of a Sailor Festival in Mobile, Alabama on September 20, 2pm-7pm: There will be EV displays at this festival which celebrates Jimmy Buffett and Gulf Coast culture. The free festival features live music, local restaurants, parrot-head costume contests and EV drivers who can answer all your questions about driving electric. 
• Electric Avenue at the Downtown Car Show in Grand Junction, Colorado on September 20, 9am-3pm: At the 23rd annual downtown car show, EVs will have their own block. Spectators will visit with drivers and can participate in a friendly competition for great prizes. 

• Knoxville Drive Electric Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee on September 27, 10am-3pm: This event bills itself as the largest NDEM event in the Southeast. Along with EV displays and ride-and-drive, the live music stage will be powered by a Ford F-150 Lightning using its vehicle-to-load capabilities.
• Plug In America Ride and Drive at Space Coast Pride Parade & Festival in Melbourne, Florida on September 27, 12pm-4pm: Plug In America itself is hosting a ride-and-drive at the Space Coast Pride Parade & Festival on Saturday, Sept. 27. The public can test drive EVs from different manufacturers, engage with local EV owners and ask questions of the organization’s EV experts.

• National Drive Electric Month Waterloo 2025 in Waterloo, Ontario on October 4 from 11am-3pm: This will once again be the largest event in Canada. There are 5 other Canadian events scheduled (all at different times), in Winnipeg (Sep13, today!), Courtenay (Sep14), Saskatoon (Sep21), Toronto (Sep27), and Regina (Sep27).
• ELECTRATON DEM’25 in Guadalajara on October 4 from 9am-5pm: This is once again the sole event in Mexico, hosted at Oscar Casillas Karting Track, where there will also be a 4th annual race of student-built electric karts alongside the EV exhibition and test drives. (Here are some photos from last year’s event, including the student kart races and a Cybertruck on track).

Not all the events are large or hosted in big cities. There are also smaller events happening in town centers, church parking lots, and so on, often with just a handful of EV owners who are typically happy to stand around and have a frank discussion with members of the public about what it’s like to own an EV, or to network with other local EV owners.

Many of these events are happening in conjunction with Sun Day, a global day of action calling for a sun-powered planet on September 21 this year. These events will focus on how solar has become a drastically cheaper form of energy, and highlight ways that everyone can benefit from more solar and by electrifying whatever uses energy in our lives – whether that be vehicles, appliances, etc.

On that front, one notable Drive Electric/Sun Day event will be in Whittier, CA on Sep. 20th (not the 21st) from 11am-3pm, with test drives, an electrified home tour, and an eco scavenger hunt. It’s being organized by one of the original founders of National Drive Electric Week, so expect to see some EV oldtimers at this one.

If you’d like to attend any of these events, either to show your vehicle, to volunteer to help run the event, or just to show up and look around, you can check out the list of events, then go to each event’s page to find more information. Remember to click the “RSVP” or “Volunteer” links near the top to register your interest (or register at the links mentioned in the event description).

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Tesla has discontinued the cheapest version of the Cybertruck just a few months after launching it.

No one wanted the gutted electric truck.

There’s no hiding it. The Cybertruck is a commercial flop.

Tesla claimed to have over 1 million reservations for the vehicle. It planned for a production capacity of up to 250,000 units per year, and CEO Elon Musk even said that he believes it could increase to 500,000 units per year.

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Meanwhile, Tesla is currently selling the Cybertruck at a rate of roughly 20,000 units per year.

The primary reason for the significantly lower-than-anticipated sales is that Tesla launched the Cybertruck at a higher price and with worse specifications than initially announced.

To address this, Tesla introduced a more affordable version of the electric pickup truck, the Cybertruck rear-wheel-drive, in April 2025.

Instead of starting at $80,000, like the Cybertruck AWD, the Cybertruck RWD started at $70,000.

However, it was an even worse deal because Tesla had essentially stripped the vehicle of its most valuable features, including active air suspension, a motorized tonneau cover, and even the power outlets in the bed, in addition to removing a motor.

Less than 5 months after launching the new vehicle, Tesla has discontinued the Cybertruck RWD.

The automaker updated the Cybertruck’s online configurator to remove the option:

Tesla hasn’t replaced the variant with a new one. It just stopped taking orders.

Electrek’s Take

I don’t know of anyone who ordered this. It was such a bad deal. There’s already only a small pool of potential Cybertruck buyers, but none of them want to lose all those essential features for $10,000.

Where does the Cybertruck go from there? Does Tesla keep the vehicle program at just ~20,000 units per year?

I think they may try to do an upgrade next year to bring it closer to what they originally promised and see if there’s more demand as a result.