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R11: For an industrial role for electric cars serving the climate, employment, the environment and social justice.

The following table describes the status, the proposer and other metadata of this motion.
Metadata of the motion
Party:Europe Ecologie - Les Verts

Title

For an industrial role for electric cars serving the climate, employment, the environment and social justice.

Draft text

In the EU, transport accounts for 27% of carbon dioxide (CO2)emissions (2017).
With a modal share of 82% in 2019 (Eurostat), the car is by far the means of
transport used most by European citizens. The personal car is responsible for
around 12% of total EU emissions of CO2.

Electric mobility is developing at an extremely rapid rate and this growth will
accelerate because it corresponds to the strategy chosen by European public
authorities to decarbonise mobility. Thus, the massification of the electric
mobility market is increasing. This motion aims to set the framework for what
could be an ecological vision of the EV, genuinely favouring our social justice
and environmental goals.

The main objective of an environmentally friendly transport policy is to reduce
the use and dependence on private cars wherever possible. Beyond the central
issue of greenhouse gas emissions, the car has negative and systemic effects,
against which we are fighting: inefficiency and congestion, air, noise and water
pollution, use of public space, sedentary lifestyle, road safety, urban sprawl,
land artificialisation, etc.

The electric vehicle (EV) is not a solution to all these negative effects.
Moreover, it has its own environmentally and socially negative externalities,
such as the dependence on critical materials. Therefore, our main objective is,
first, to reduce necessary distances wherever possible and, second, to ensure a
shift towards active modes and collective and shared means of transportation.
This must be achieved through a global approach to mobility, which takes into
account transport but more broadly the determinants of travel demand: town
planning, land policies, greater attention to soaring property prices but also
the social and cultural construction of our way of life. An ecological transport
policy is necessarily systemic.

However, due to the very construction of the space we inherit, shaped for cars,
it is still difficult to get around outside built-up areas. This is why,
whilewishing to reduce the space occupied by the car, it is also necessary to
support the transition to less-polluting automobile mobility. The EV can be one
way of achieving such a transition.

The European Green Party:

1. Ensuring the sustainability of vehicle and battery production throughout the
value chain:

  • declares that the EV is an improvement on thermal vehicles running on
    fossil fuels of the same category in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and
    local pollutants over the vehicle’s life, especially in an increasingly
    carbon-free electric mix;
  • notes the need to monitor load factors. It is crucial to avoid situations
    in which a very large number of vehicles are recharged at the same time in
    order to limit the need for additional, potentially carbon-containing
    production factors. To do this, we must first maximise the charging
    points, especially outside of our homes. Thus, a policy of equipping major
    traffic attractors and workplaces would seem essential;
  • calls for a European regulation on the consumption of EVs, defined in kWh
    per km, to support energy conservation;
  • supports the principle of a new European regulation on batteries and calls
    for the highest environmental standards to be implemented. More
    specifically, the EGP advocates the most ambitious possible targets in
    terms of recycled contents. Moreover, the new regulation should provide
    for a mandatory CO2 footprint on battery labelling;
  • is in favour of European market design rules that maximise the benefits of
    EV auto-consumption from individual solar panels;
  • supports the development of EV-based network services (flexibility and
    storage, vehicle to grid);
  • asks emission calculations to be systematically carried out over the
    entire life cycle and not "from tank to wheel", as is currently the case,
    which amounts to artificially downplaying the benefits of alternative
    transitional paths, such as traffic moderation, urban-sprawl limitation
    and, above all, the development of active modes wherever possible.

2. Favouring long-distance modal shift:

  • proposes that EVs should primarily be supported for local mobility in
    rural areas where public transport and active travel are not an option to
    cover all mobility needs. For long-distance travel, the EGP promotes a
    train-based transport system;
  • considers as an effect that highway charge-point equipment on travel
    corridors that are also served by rail services should not be considered a
    priority.

3. EU industrial policy:

  • encourages the EU to take any relevant action to promote the
    interoperability of charge networks across national borders;
  • supports the production of batteries in Europe, which constitutes an
    opportunity to reindustrialise our territories and produce useful,
    qualified and stable jobs. ‘Made in Europe’ batteries should continue to
    be exempted from state-aid regulation until the competitiveness gap with
    foreign actors has been filled;
  • stresses that the EU should help territories, companies and employees to
    anticipate the profound changes attracted by the shift towards electric
    mobility. In particular, EU Structural and Cohesion Funds could be used in
    the transition towards the EV, notably to finance vocational training.
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