E-fuel compromise: Welcome to the neo-Biedermeier period of the liberals!

This is a textbook example of a Pyrrhic victory: Apart from the well-organized E-fuel lobby, the minister actually receives hardly any approval for his "sad triumph," as colleagues from the Süddeutsche Zeitung called it. And possibly from large parts of the population, meaning the FDP can probably score a few "populism points" for itself. At least, a Forsa survey indicates that two-thirds of respondents reject the 2035 combustion engine phase-out. And the approval for e-mobility is rapidly declining. The next car: For a third of them, preferably a gasoline car! Unbelievable, but true - and the result of a constant "badmouthing" of e-mobility by the politics of the so-called progressive party FDP, which in this issue behaves worse than the CDU/CSU did in its most regressive Grand Coalition times.

One wouldn't even want to call it conservative in a good sense, it's more "restorative" and wants to return to the "good old combustion engine days," almost reminiscent of the "Biedermeier era" of the early 19th century. So much for "technology openness": The FDP seems to interpret this as "open towards the past." Instead of inspiring Germans with genuinely new technology, it spoils their mood, relentlessly repeating complaints about the supposedly (and unfortunately really) mediocre charging infrastructure in cities instead of creating a positive vision of new mobility and truly "taking the people along," as politicians like to emphasize in Sunday speeches - and that means towards the future, not the past. This party of progressiveness is a complete label fraud.

It is also emphasized that they want to protect the automotive industry. But this protection is failing in a textbook manner, not only because the industry itself, in this case, mostly did not want to be protected and was quasi "forced" by the FDP: Clinging too long to an outdated and in terms of efficiency hopelessly inferior technology, as already went thoroughly wrong with diesel, the industry has indeed learned its lessons - and except for niche provider Porsche and partially the M-Power faction at BMW, as well as a strangely late alliance of Renault-Geely-Aramco, no serious manufacturer is betting on e-fuels or the combustion engine. Especially as the other issues of emissions and noise, which remain with e-fuels, were hardly addressed in the unfortunate debate triggered. The fact of the matter, as the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research dryly summarized in a dossier, is:

"E-fuels are not yet commercially available today. So far, there are very few demonstration plants worldwide. By 2035, about 60 new e-fuel projects are currently announced, of which only about 1 percent are secured with a final investment decision. All these worldwide projects together correspond to only about 10% of Germany's indispensable e-fuel needs (air traffic, maritime traffic, and chemistry). Politics has a lever with mandatory quotas for e-fuels in air and maritime traffic to accelerate the e-fuel market ramp-up.

Meanwhile, Chinese manufacturers are showing us how it's done with affordable e-cars: The MG4 and MG5 are selling like hotcakes, BYD will soon be rolling out a 15,000-euro e-car with the Dolphin after the more expensive Atto, and the Dacia Spring is actually Chinese as well. And if Tesla gets going with the Model 2, Europeans will be caught in a pincer movement.

And so it can be observed exactly how the Kaiser Wilhelm-like "bet on the (wrong) horse" within ten years massively shifts the balance of power - and endangers precisely what FDP and CDU/CSU politicians claim to protect here: jobs.

In the end, the damage is primarily to the environment and the climate, meaning all of us, but also to the economy and industry, which could have used a clear signal instead of an almost bizarrely constructed backroom compromise for a separate class of e-fuel cars, whose final decision is not even secured. Incidentally, the FDP has ruthlessly demolished and disrespectfully jostled the democratic processes of the EU, as if Lindner and Wissing were driving bumper cars at the fair.

All the worse is the situation due to the "hybrid" stance of the SPD and its rather participatory and lacking-in-stance Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the equally "restorative" rhetoric of the CDU and especially the CSU, not to mention the "reactionary" tone of the so-called "Alternative for Germany." So little "lust for progress," in and outside the "progressive coalition," this will be difficult. We need a "race to the top," a competition for the best solutions, not a "stick to the past," a clinging to the old.

The FDP and its minister have fought for mere symbolism and jumped onto a (electric) train that had long since departed. You can't catch up with a handcar now, whether you help with an e-fuel engine or not. Welcome to the "Neo-Biedermeier" of the liberals.