Should companies be forced to buy electric cars?

Should large companies electrify their cars as quickly as individuals? A highly contested bill from Renaissance MP Damien Adam is being examined Tuesday in the National Assembly.

The 3,500 companies that manage a fleet of more than 100 vehicles have been required since 2019 to order quotas for low-emission vehicles when they renew their fleets. They must therefore anticipate the ban on the sale of new thermal vehicles in 2035.

But this obligation (10% of low-emission vehicles by the start of 2022) has only been respected by a third of these large companies, due to lack of sanctions, and with electric cars still expensive to purchase.

The bill from MP Damien Adam (Renaissance) aims to “accelerate and control the greening” of these fleets, essential because they then supply the second-hand market.

“The French want those who have the most to do more,” he told AFP. According to him, we must “stop the + stop and go” on the electrification of vehicles and “offer a safe trajectory”.

Due to the number of amendments (326), MEPs will probably not be able to complete the examination on Tuesday evening and the text should be put back on the agenda later, perhaps after the European elections on June 9.

The proposed law provoked an outcry from several professions, such as short-term rental companies. They believe that they cannot electrify as quickly as individuals and that this electric leap would put their cash flow at risk.

When it passed through committee, the text was already slightly softened. The greening trajectory has notably been postponed by one year (20% of very low-emission vehicles in 2025 rather than 2024, then 30% in 2026 and 90% in 2032), and the sanctions reduced (from 5,000 to 2,000 euros per missing vehicle in 2025, before increasing).

Short-term rental companies were also entitled to a more flexible trajectory, while VTC and taxi platforms must be treated in a separate decree.

– Divided majority –

The challenge of this text is now more to “enforce the law as it is” than to make further progress on electrification, commented Léo Larivière, of Transport & Environment. The NGO, allied with the CFDT, the Climate Action Network and the UFC-Que Choisir, urged the Prime Minister at the end of April to support this reform.

“If the law were not to be passed or if its ambition were to be too reduced, we would risk condemning the national and European objectives of decarbonization of the transport sector,” launched the organizations in an open letter.

The text was supported by Renaissance and the left, and opposed by LR and the RN, who see it as a “punitive ecology”. The majority is divided.

The MoDem is against: “I refuse to legislate with a wet finger,” denounces centrist deputy Bruno Millienne to AFP. “The trajectory is not respected, it does not work, and we say that what we are going to do is toughen the trajectory.”

“I cannot believe that there are 2,000 rogue companies out of the 3,500 concerned. We must understand the objective reasons which mean that they cannot do it,” underlined Mr. Millienne.

At Horizons, another ally of the presidential camp, Vincent Thiébaut is “very mixed” and highlights the lack of charging stations. “We need to take a step back”, with a “parliamentary mission”, he suggests. Vincent Thiébaut does not believe in the “capacity and will of the Senate” to subsequently take up such a text to validate it.

Among the amendments that must be examined, some call for going further in relaxing the law or integrating other technologies that are more polluting than electricity, such as plug-in hybrids or agrofuels.

Others, from Renaissance and the left, want to push for the greening of public fleets for reasons of exemplarity.

According to a source within Renaissance, the government is “totally supportive” of the PPL. “If people from the majority want to say that they are against the electrification of cars, good luck.”

© 2024 AFP

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