November 10, 2026
The European Parliament’s environment committee voted 48 to 30 on November 4 to end the EU’s all-zero-emission rule for new cars in 2035, according to the Parliament’s committee vote release. Carmakers would have to cut fleet emissions by 87.5% from 2021 levels at the tailpipe. Credits for low-carbon steel made in the EU would carry them the rest of the way to a 95% target.
The committee’s 2035 text changes what counts toward the target as much as the number itself. Part of the 2035 target could be met by buying European steel, and small electric cars built in the EU would count for more than one car in a maker’s average. Where a car and its steel are made would start to count toward the same target as what leaves the exhaust.
The deciding committee has now voted
Procedure 2025/0420(COD), as the Parliament’s Legislative Observatory lists the file, is led by the environment committee, with the transport and industry committees giving opinions. Both backed the text on October 22, the trade site electrive reported on November 5, so the November 4 vote produced the text the full Parliament is due to take up in December.
Looser than the Commission on two counts
In December 2025 the Commission proposed a 90% tailpipe cut, a figure GCBC wrote up in January as The 2035 ICE Ban Is Over. Under that proposal, electrive notes, the remaining 10% had to be fully made up with green steel and climate-friendly fuels.
Against that, the committee lowers the tailpipe floor by 2.5 points and stops the compensation five points short of zero emissions. Those last five points would be neither cut nor offset.
Before 2035, steel credits would count for no more than 3% toward a maker’s target, the release says, for cars and vans alike. That is a small new lever beside the ones makers already use, such as the pooling GCBC reported on in March, when Toyota, Stellantis and Subaru left Tesla’s EU emissions pool for 2026.
Built in the EU counts for more
Small electric cars up to 4.2 metres long and made in the EU would count as 1.4 vehicles in a maker’s average. Highly efficient EU-built electric cars would count as 1.2, and registration through a social leasing scheme adds 0.1 to either. EU-built electric vans would count as 1.2 at first. From 2035 they would count as 1.4.
A Chinese or Korean electric car of the same size, imported into the EU, would on this text count once: the test is where the car is built, not who builds it. Battery-electric cars took 29.9% of EU registrations in September, as GCBC reported in October. A multiplier on the EU-built small end of that share lets a maker count its way toward the target faster than it sells.
The Parliament’s text lets fuels in as well. Cars and vans that run only on eligible renewable and low-carbon fuels would be counted as zero-emission vehicles, so a combustion engine could sit inside the zero-emission definition.
Vans get the bigger relief
For vans, the committee wants a 35% reduction by 2030, against 40% in the Commission’s text. The rules now in force ask for 50%. For 2035 the van target would fall to 80%, with steel credits again capped at 7.5 points. That 2030 figure, four years out, is the nearest date the release gives for any changed target, while the headline change for cars waits for 2035.
What December decides
December’s plenary session is expected to vote the Parliament’s mandate for talks with EU governments, the release says, and the Observatory gives December 14 as the indicative sitting date. A floor vote can still amend the text. Governments then negotiate through the Council, where electrive reports a qualified majority is needed. By its account, Germany and France recently backed the Commission’s tailpipe figure with no compensation required.
What would surprise is a plenary that pushes the car floor back toward 90% or strips the made-in-the-EU test from the multipliers. Until a final text is adopted, the 2035 rule in force is still the 100% target.
