- Volkswagen says there’s no point in discussing the ban of combustion engines.
- The company’s sales, marketing, and after-sales boss believes people will realize that EVs are just better than gas cars.
- Martin Sander said that horses were never banned, but people still chose gas cars for transportation because they were simply better.
People will find out that electric cars are better than gas-powered vehicles, just like people quickly realized that gas cars are plainly better than horses for travel. That’s what Martin Sanders, Volkswagen’s board member for sales, marketing, and after-sales, said, referring to the constant talk about the potential gas engine ban in Europe.
In a recent interview with AutoExpress, Sanders cheekily asked: “Do you know when horses were banned? When was it forbidden to buy horses?” Volkswagen’s sales boss explained that people can still buy horses today, but that everybody realized at some point that it’s easier to use a gas car to go from point A to point B.
VW’s new EV push includes the high-volume ID. Polo.
Photo by: Volkswagen
The same will happen with EVs, Sanders argued, but people need to get away from the gas ban narrative, which prevents them from seeing the benefits of electrified vehicles.
“Take all the barriers away”, he said. Let’s talk about what we need to do to actually convince customers: the charging infrastructure, talk positively about the advantages of electric vehicles, and possibly do something around the energy prices. Over time, more and more customers will be convinced. Then, if by 2035 or whatever, there’s three, four, five percent of customers who still want to buy a vehicle with a combustion engine…”
The comparison between gas cars and horses is something that Rivian’s CEO, RJ Scaringe, touched upon a few years ago, too, joking that buying an ICE vehicle is “like building a horse barn in 1910.”
As a reminder, the European Union had planned to ban sales of new combustion-engine cars from 2035, but that initiative was ultimately watered down. From the middle of the next decade, cars with harmful emissions will still be allowed on sale, but automakers will have to slash carbon dioxide emissions by 90% compared to 2021 levels, effectively allowing a limited number of gas-burning models to live on.
To respect the upcoming rules, Volkswagen is betting on a mix of combustion, mild hybrid, full hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and all-electric models. Despite its legacy automaker tag, the German company is in better shape than some of its competitors, with a solid lineup of electrified models, which is bound to improve in the following years.
The company recently debuted the electric ID. Polo subcompact hatchback, which will be sold alongside the previous-generation gas Polo, a car that has traditionally been a great seller. The ID.4 crossover is in for a big update soon, too, and the ID.7 sedan and wagon have seen reasonable success in Europe.
All this being said, Sanders is adamant that Volkswagen will not bring its range-extended EV technology to Europe. “There is a market in China. In Germany or in Europe at the moment? I don’t really see that opportunity,” he said, adding that the company has the range it needs to be competitive.