Briefing

Weak climate rules put Europe’s battery boom at risk

June 8, 2021

Europe’s surging EV market has resulted in plans for 38 battery gigafactories, totalling over 1000gWh of output and almost €40bn in investment.

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Yet, weak CO₂ standards between 2022 and 2029 give carmakers little incentive to increase the sales of electric cars until 2030. This could result in well over half of the expected output having no market. This is a missed opportunity to boost Europe’s economy and secure thousands of skilled jobs.

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Children make their way to school surrounded by SUVs in London, England.

This photograph is part of a new collection of images highlighting the impact of 'carspreading' on the school run taken by photographer Crispin Huges for Clean Cities.

Carspreading is taking over our cities. Cars are getting bigger — about 1cm wider every two years. The thing is, our streets aren’t. More than half of new cars in Europe are too wide for urban parking spaces, leaving our cities crowded and congested. And carspreading is damaging our planet too - petrol and diesel SUVs burn around 20% more fuel, and electric SUVs require more resources and critical battery minerals.

Clean Cities is Europe’s largest network of organisations dedicated to active, shared and electric urban mobility.

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