The European Commission unveiled a plan on Tuesday to drop the EU's effective ban on new combustion-engine cars from 2035 after pressure from the region's auto sector, marking the bloc's biggest retreat from its green policies in recent years.
The move, which still needs approval from EU governments and the European Parliament, would allow continued sales of some non-electric vehicles. Carmakers in regional industrial powerhouse Germany and in Italy had sought easing of the rules.
The EU executive appears to have bowed to calls from carmakers to keep selling plug-in hybrids and range extenders that burn fuel as they struggle to compete against Tesla, opens new tab and Chinese electric vehicle makers.
2024 reports in Belgium say 42% nuclear (53% import, indeed from France), 17.3% gas, and 17.9% wind, biofuel at 3%, and solar at 11.9% (probably mostly from residential feedback).
So gas is pretty much being eliminated. It dropped from 30% in 2020 to 17.3% in 2024.
And prices have only gone up with those savings. But that probably has to do more with extremely corrupt scammers that we have as energy companies. For example in the oil crisis at the start of the Russian invasion, gas exploded in price (3x more expensive) in November. My gas company (Mega) tried to say that we used 99.7% of our gas in November and December only. We apparently only used the equivalent of a single hot shower through the rest of the year. We work with a monthly "estimated usage" payment and then the difference between actual usage is paid at the end of the year. This resulted in us having a 3500€ bill at the end of the year.
Luckily we had a (now standard) smart meter so we could prove via a 3rd party that they were flat out lying and scamming us, but then it was "oopsie poopsie, how could we know??" Anyway, they get record profits every year, so that is probably a lot of the reason