The Retreat Begins Before the Deadline Arrives
On November 28, 2025, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged the EU to slow the 2035 combustion-engine ban, arguing for flexibility and expanded synthetic fuel quotas. This polite retreat from a decade-long climate narrative is wrapped in the language of realism. Behind it sits a harsher truth: Europe’s climate ambition outran its industrial reality.
The EV crisis is not a failure of climate ambition; it is a failure of industrial preparation.
Choreography — A Decade of Targets Without Traction
Europe framed the 2035 ban as inevitability. Germany projected itself as environmental conscience. But the choreography underneath was fragile: charging infrastructure expanded slowly, grid modernization lagged, and capital flows never matched policy promises. The architecture of the transition was built on declarations, not deployment.
Europe built a climate deadline without building the industrial timeline needed to reach it.
Field — The Shock Arrives From the East
China executed a different choreography: one grounded in scale, battery dominance, and vertical supply-chain control. While Europe debated standards, China built factories. By 2025, Chinese EVs were flooding Europe at price points German manufacturers could not match.
- The Collision: Europe’s climate ambition was no longer on a collision course with physics—it was on a collision course with China’s industrial discipline.
Europe confronted climate reality; China confronted industrial opportunity.
Ledger — Daydream vs. Discipline
A comparison reveals the divergence between EU/Germany and China. Europe built a narrative of leadership; China built a platform of dominance.
- Strategy: Europe prioritized Legislated Ambition, while China focused on Operationalized Scale.
- Focus: Europe treated the targets as Moral Signalling, whereas China saw them as securing Market Share.
- Execution: Europe delivered Deadlines Without Deployment; China achieved Integration (Batteries, Minerals).
- Result: Europe Imagined a green economy; China Manufactured it.
Policy is not a substitute for infrastructure, and narrative is not a substitute for supply chains.
Consumer and Investor Lessons
Consumer Layer — Promise Was Affordability, Reality Was Retreat
Consumers were told EVs would become cheaper and charging easier. Instead, EVs remained expensive, charging networks inconsistent, and Chinese imports captured the affordability segment. Consumer hesitation was not ideological; it was logistical.
Affordability is the real climate policy; everything else is narrative architecture.
Investor Layer — Capital Flew Where Execution Lived
Investors saw something politicians did not: China had the discipline to execute. Capital flowed to CATL’s balance sheet and BYD’s expansion plans. Europe delivered regulatory certainty but industrial uncertainty.
Capital rewards execution, not ambition.
Conclusion
The EV transition became a tale of two sovereignties: the sovereignty of virtue (Europe) and the sovereignty of supply chains (China).
- The Danger: The danger is not missing the 2035 target; the danger is surrendering the entire industrial frontier to a foreign supply chain because Europe mistook narrative for traction.
Climate leadership built on rhetoric collapses; climate leadership built on capacity endures.