BMW’s CEO Oliver Zipse speaking at an automobile congress in Berlin this week
said that the move to ban the sale of petrol and diesel models in Europe and
around the globe by 2035 threatened the livelihoods of thousands of workers.
This is not the first time the BMW CEO has been outspoken on the move to
outlaw the sale of new cars with internal combustion engines, suggesting the
industry will look different in terms of scale and structure that it does today if it
goes to just one technology. Zipse comments echo those of Toyota’s Chairman
Akio Toyoda, who last month said Japan’s plan to ban sales of new petrol and
diesel-powered vehicles, also by 2035, would lead to millions of job losses there.
Toyota recently announced a partnership with BMW to build a mass-produced
hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. I’m David Berthon