The ecological bonus for the purchase of an electric car will be reformed to “take into account the carbon footprint” of their production and thus favor vehicles manufactured in Europe, President Emmanuel Macron announced on Thursday.
It is a question of “coherence of the industrial policy of decarbonization” according to the words used by Emmanuel Macron. During his speech on reindustrialization this Thursday afternoon, the President of the Republic indicated that the automobile bonus would now take into account “the carbon footprint” to support what is produced in Europe.
“We must agree to target our aid and our purchasing policies on what is good for the climate and for Europe.”
The Head of State notably mentioned poor European management in the context of the development of the photovoltaic sector. “We must not replicate the mistakes we made, for example on photovoltaics, he insisted. We have massively deployed photovoltaics in Europe and at the same time we have massively destroyed our photovoltaic industry. And so we have created a dependence on China and we made the Chinese industry successful. I don’t want it to be replicated in particular on the battery.”
No freebies to Americans and Chinese
Emmanuel Macron thus intends to make France “the first European country to reform the criteria for allocating the car bonus as soon as the bill is drafted to better take into account the carbon footprint of vehicle production and for public support to be targeted. on these goals. The President of the Republic justifies this targeted support for batteries and vehicles produced in Europe by a carbon footprint that is “good”.
In a context of tensions around the American IRA, the head of state ruled out any desire for “protectionism” through this measure: “We are not going to close the market but we are not going to use taxpayers’ money French to accelerate non-European industrialization.” It has also extended this issue to the European level. “When I see the discussions on battery regulations, I don’t want Europe to be able to help batteries that are not made in Europe because neither the Americans nor the Chinese happen to help batteries that are made in Europe,” he explained.
“Why would we be the only space in the world that helps what is being done by competitors? We are not closing the door to them, but even though they have non-cooperative policies, we are not going to add our helpers as well.”
Consideration of environmental criteria for public orders
The criteria for awarding this reformed ecological bonus will be defined “by the end of the year”, according to the Head of State. It will also be a question of taking into account the integration of recycled or biosourced materials in the production of vehicles, according to the Ministry of the Economy. “Builders will therefore have to justify that they meet these ecological criteria required to be able to benefit from the ecological bonus”, according to him. Bercy says it has developed a model to assess the carbon footprint of building a vehicle, “from the battery to the construction of the engine”.
The ecological bonus constitutes financial assistance granted to any purchaser or lessee (holder of a rental contract for a period greater than or equal to two years) of an electric or hydrogen vehicle or a combination of the two. The purchase cost must be less than 47,000 euros. The State devotes one billion euros to it.
Emmanuel Macron also said that public orders would take into account environmental criteria “for key decarbonization products” such as wind turbines and heat pumps from July 2024 instead of 2026. “We will favor responsible public ordering, especially in the most critical markets, solar, wind, heat pumps and others,” he said. “We are going to stop financing non-Europeans with our public contracts and therefore that, we will do it from July 2024.”
