Europe’s 2035 Gas-Car Ban Is Softening: Up to 39% of New Cars Could Still Burn Fuel

In 2023, the European Commission decided to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars starting in 2035. That plan is now being rewritten. Lawmakers first moved toward a 90% CO2 reduction instead of 100%, and a plan approved in early November 2026 shifted the intention further, toward reducing CO2 quotas to 87.5% rather than eliminating them.

The headline number needs careful reading, because 87.5% is a CO2 reduction, not a share of cars sold. Reuters and Automotive News did the math on what the remaining 12.5% of emissions headroom means in practice: it would amount to roughly 39% of new cars still having a combustion engine under the hood after 2035, once plug-in hybrids and other partial-electrification routes are counted.

For the industry, the compromise changes the post-2035 outlook completely. Instead of a hard stop for internal combustion, carmakers get a long tail in which hybrids and plug-in hybrids can keep selling alongside a growing electric majority — and the investment case for combustion engineering gets several more years of life.

Nothing is final yet. The full European Parliament must vote on the measure during December 2026, so a few more weeks will pass before the fate of the automotive industry after 2035 is settled.