PARIS (AFP) – A change at the top of European institutions could herald a change in the 2035 target to phase out sales of internal combustion engine cars even though the automotive industry is already well down the road towards transitioning to electric vehicles.

Following lengthy negotiations, European Union (EU) member states reached a historic agreement in 2022: from January 1, 2035 the only new cars that can be sold in the bloc are those with no tailpipe CO2 emissions.

Thus in slightly more than a decade there will be no more petrol and diesel cars in showrooms with sales limited to battery electric or hydrogen-powered vehicles.

Cancelling the 2035 deadline has become a rallying cry for Europe’s right-wing parties.

The European car industry is a major employer and a leader in traditional cars but is far behind Chinese upstarts in developing electric vehicles, particularly at low prices.

The ECR parliamentary group, which includes the Brothers of Italy and Spain’s VOX, still denies the need to move to electric vehicles.

“We stand firm in our belief that the internal combustion engine, a testament to the power of European creativity and ingenuity, can remain commercially viable for years to come by embracing cutting-edge technology and investing in ground-breaking research on alternative low-emission fuels,” its election manifesto reads.

The other right-wing group in the European Parliament, Identity and Democracy that includes the RN in France and AfD in Germany, has taken aim at expensive electric vehicles hurting consumers, calling the impending ban a discriminatory and socially excluding measure.

The outgoing majority party, the centre-right European People’s Party, is divided. The two German parties in the group, the CDU and CSU, want to scrap the 2035 deadline to continue to benefit from “state-of-the-art German internal combustion engine technology”.

That didn’t make it into the EPP manifesto because it was the head of their list, outgoing Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, who negotiated the deadline as part of the EU “Green Deal”.

“It would be surprising if the Commission that put into place the Green Deal backtracked on it, but there are risks on its implementation,” said Diane Strauss at the NGO Transport and Environment.

The automobile industry, which employs 12 million people in Europe, is well on its way in shifting to electric vehicles.

The number of fully electric models available has increased and their share of the market has climbed to around 13 per cent at the end of last year, even if growth has flagged slightly.

But the head of the European car lobby group ACEA, Renault CEO Luca de Meo, recently indicated a delay would be welcome.

“I hope the ban will come into force a bit later because I think we won’t be able to do it without damaging all of the European auto industry and value chain,” he told AFP in February.

ANN/CHINA DAILY – Chinese holidays have injected impetus into the world economy, with the just-concluded May Day holiday bringing a strong burst of tourism growth to domestic as well as overseas destinations, travel experts said.

They added that the holiday’s prosperity marks the all-around recovery of the nation’s tourism industry.

The holiday brought good tidings from travel agencies, which said that long-distance tour products were hot sellers over the five-day holiday, which ended on Sunday. The holiday’s good performance is also expected to promote the healthier, more sustainable development of the industry.

More Chinese people chose to spend the break at overseas destinations. Travel portal Qunar said that countries and regions in and near Central Asia and in Europe were hot choices, with flight bookings to Saudi Arabia and Egypt seeing triple growth year-on-year on the platform.

Flight sales heading to some European destinations, including the United Kingdom, Hungary, Ireland, Spain and Croatia, doubled at Qunar over the holiday.

The recent currency declines of the Japanese yen made the nation one of the top choices for Chinese travellers, who went on sightseeing tours and shopping sprees, according to Qunar.

Traditionally popular overseas destinations such as Thailand and Singapore were also overwhelmed by Chinese travellers during the holiday.

“The popularity and prosperity of overseas destinations with shorter travel times have exceeded our expectations. I think the main reasons lie in the adding of international flights, more friendly visa policies for Chinese people, and the longer duration of the holiday,” said Vice-president of travel portal Tuniu Qi Chunguang,

Domestic scenic spots also witnessed a travel boom. Shanghai, Beijing and Sanya in the southern island province of Hainan were the top three choices on Tuniu.

ANN/CHINA DAILY – Nearly 1,460 leading bicycle companies from China and abroad are participating in the 32nd China International Bicycle Fair which ends tomorrow in Shanghai.

Industry big names including Giant, Merida and Shimano can be found at the fair.

More than 600 products are showcased at the special exhibition area featuring creative technology breakthroughs. Another 30 products were demonstrated at the area designated to show the progress in the bicycle industrial transformation and upgrading in China.

The exhibition also held two business matchmaking meetings, inviting over 100 overseas buyers and exhibitors to meet the purchase demand in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

According to China Bicycle Association, the country’s bike makers, with an annual sales revenue of at least CNY20 million (USD2.77 million), churned out a total of 7.31 million bikes in the first quarter of 2024, up 15 per cent from a year earlier. In the first three months, their sales revenue climbed 2.3 per cent year-on-year on average, while their net profit grew by 13 per cent on a yearly basis.

China exported nearly 11 million bicycles in the first quarter, up 29.3 per cent year-on-year and 13.7 percent from the fourth quarter of 2023. Nearly 2.3 million bikes were exported to the United States, spiked 47.2 per cent year-on-year, while the number exported to Russia jumped 52.1 per cent year-on-year to 930,000.

Bike export to Iraq surged the most significantly by 111 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter, followed by the 74.2 per cent increase to Canada and 71.6 per cent to Vietnam, according to China Bicycle Association.

As for the domestic market, downhill mountain bikes, gravel road bikes, triathlon bikes and electric assist bicycles have gained increasing popularity among the Chinese consumers, according to the association.

NEW YORK (AFP) – Spurred on by major technological advances and huge private investment, the United States’ (US) nuclear fusion sector could be producing electricity within 10 years, industry players said.

The process, which powers the Sun, sees two atomic nuclei combine – and release massive amounts of energy. But private companies on Earth are also hoping decades of research might finally culminate in fusion power plants being connected to the grid in the 2030s.

The buzz comes amid an influx of cash: in two years, the private sector has more than doubled its investments, reaching a total of USD5.9 billion at the end of 2023, compared with just USD271 million from the public sector.

Part of the hype is derived from what experts see as an impending tipping point, where theoretical science will soon become a reality.

“It’s not just about doing science, it’s actually about delivering products,” said Dennis Whyte, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Around two-thirds of start-ups from various countries, surveyed by the Fusion Industry Association (FIA), see the first fusion power plant connected to the power grid by 2035 at the latest.

Last year, Helion Energy, a fusion power start-up in Washington state, even signed an agreement with Microsoft for 50 megawatts (MW) of capacity to be operational by 2029.

“Remarkable things have happened just in the last couple of years,” said Pravesh Patel, of the start-up Focused Energy, at the CERAWeek energy conference.

“It’s like the first time the Wright brothers took off the ground,” he said, referring to the first ever flight of a powered aircraft in 1903. “People can see that it’s possible. It’s no longer theoretical.”

Major recent milestones include an experiment by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California in December 2022, in which more energy was released from the fusion than was used to produce it.

Fusion consists of assembling two atomic nuclei derived from hydrogen, usually deuterium and tritium, in a confined enclosure, at a heat of over 100 million degrees Celsius.

Together, they form a helium nucleus and release neutrons, which bombard the reactor walls and raise their temperature.

This heat is then converted into electricity, via steam produced when water comes into contact with the outside of the reactor.

Fusion has the advantage of being emissions-free. It also produces less waste than its cousin fission and cannot cause a radiation disaster.

Most start-ups have opted for the magnetic confinement technology used in the tokamak, the best-known reactor model. This differs from the inertial confinement method chosen by LLNL, which uses lasers.

Helion, on the other hand, recovers energy directly from inside the reactor, without using steam, and its process produces less neutrons, thus reducing projections on the walls and their erosion.

Such methods “offer an advantage in getting to commercialisation,” a Helion spokesperson said.

Until recently, the economic viability of nuclear fusion appeared uncertain, as magnetic confinement required the manufacture of gigantic magnets.

But recently published studies by researchers at MIT and start-up Commonwealth Fusion Systems have shown that fusion is possible with much smaller magnets than originally imagined.

“Overnight, this has divided the cost per watt by 40,” Whyte told MIT News. “Now fusion has a chance” to become a reality in energy supply, he said.

With USD2 billion in private capital, Commonwealth is by far the company to have raised the most funds in the sector. It plans to activate its demonstration reactor, SPARC, next year, then open its first power plant in the early 2030s.

Many uncertainties remain, but if Commonwealth and Helion are successful, it would enable the US to become the first country to produce commercial electricity through fusion, a step no other nation is aiming for before 2035 at best.

FRANKFURT (AP) – In the latest round of their decades-long battle for dominance in commercial aircraft, Europe’s Airbus established a clear sales lead over Boeing even before the American company encountered more fallout from manufacturing problems and ongoing safety concerns.

Airbus has outpaced Boeing for five straight years in plane orders and deliveries, and just reported a 28 per cent quarterly increase in net profit. It was already winning market share by beating Boeing to develop a line of fuel-efficient, mid-sized aircraft that are cheaper for airlines to fly.

And now Boeing is facing a government-mandated production cap on its best-selling plane.

Yet the European company is unlikely to extend its advantage in the Airbus-Boeing duopoly much further despite having customers clamoring for more commercial aircraft, according to aviation analysts.

The reason: Airbus already is making planes as fast as it can and has a backlog of more than 8,600 orders to fill.

Its ability to leverage Boeing’s troubles therefore is “very limited”, according to Managing Director at Alton Aviation Consultancy Jonathan Berger. Between strained supply chains and the long lead times for a hugely complex and highly regulated product, a jetliner ordered from Airbus today may not arrive until the end of the decade.

Boeing also has a huge order backlog for more than 5,660 commercial planes. The mismatch between the post-COVID demand for flights and the aircraft supply pipeline is bad news for travellers as well as airlines.

“This has been an incredibly strong market recovery, and people need more jets than they’re getting,” said managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory Richard Aboulafia. “And until they get those jets, you don’t have enough capacity. Guess what goes up? Ticket prices.”

At the beginning of the year, Boeing seemed finally to be recovering from two crashes of Max jets in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people in Indonesia and Ethiopia.

Then, on January 5, a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9, and the company has been reeling ever since.

Boeing has since slowed manufacturing at the order of the United States (US) Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). It lost USD355 million in the first quarter because of a decline in aircraft deliveries and compensation it paid to airlines for a temporary grounding of Max 9s. The Max was Boeing’s answer to Airbus’ A320 family of planes.

Airbus, which is registered in the Netherlands but has its main headquarters in France, is taking a conspicuously cautious and even modest stance toward its recent success and its rival’s woes.

CEO Guillaume Faury has said he’s “not happy” about Boeing’s troubles and they’re not good for the industry as a whole.

In an April 25 call with journalists, Faury was reserved about how much the company could speed up production, even with EUR8.7 billion in cash on hand. Airbus was managing “a diversity of challenges” in getting the parts it needs, he said, and must “make sure that we ramp up at a pace that is compatible with the weakest suppliers”.

Faury stressed that any moves to expand production would be done with an eye to “our core pillars of safety, quality, integrity, compliance and security”.

Airbus and Boeing have manufacturing constraints in part because the two companies are not so much aircraft makers as “aircraft assemblers” that rely on thousands of parts made by other companies, from the fuselage and engines to electronics and interiors, Alton Aviation’s Berger noted. Since “the supply chains are going as fast as they can,” Airbus is not in a position to swoop in and take Boeing’s customers.

The European company scored a symbolic win, however, when United Airlines lined up leases for 35 Airbus jets because of delays that Boeing faces in getting its new, larger Max 10 approved by US regulators.

Given that, “Airbus is playing it well. They’re being very, very humble. It’s smart because they can’t exploit it.” Berger said.

Airbus last year topped Boeing for the fifth straight year in the orders race, with 2,094 net orders and 735 delivered planes. Boeing had 1,314 net orders and delivered 528 aircraft.

Airbus currently leads Boeing in sales of large single-aisle planes 80 per cent to 20 per cent, according to figures from Alton Aviation Consultancy. The matchup between the smaller Airbus A320 and Boeing’s 737 Max 7 and Max 8 is more even; Airbus is ahead on delivered planes but Boeing is ahead 54 per cent to 46 per cent when the European company’s order backlog is counted.

Airbus’ success is not just due to Boeing’s missteps. The company is benefiting from its decision to launch the A321neo, a single-aisle aircraft with 180 to 230 seats. “Neo” stands for new engine option, meaning highly fuel efficient engines that save airlines money on one of their biggest costs. Boeing rushed to match with the Max, a 737 equipped with new, more efficient engines, only to run into trouble with the crashes and door plug.

Airbus also benefited from a deal to take over the smaller A220 developed by Canada’s Bombardier. Boeing is without a competing product in that niche.

SINGAPORE (AFP) – Singapore Airlines said yesterday it will buy 1,000 tonnes of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from Neste, the first purchase of the low-carbon jet fuel from the Finnish firm’s refinery in the city-state.

The leading Asian carrier signed an agreement with Neste to purchase the SAF to blend with conventional fuel for use by the airline and its budget arm Scoot, according to a joint statement issued by the three companies.

The Neste refinery’s expansion at Changi was completed last year and it now has a production capacity of a million tonnes of sustainable aviation fuel a year, making it the largest such facility in the world.

Neste will start delivering SAF to Changi Airport’s fuel hydrant system in the second quarter and then in the fourth quarter, the statement said.SAFs are made from 100 per cent renewable waste and residue raw materials and cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80 per cent over the fuel’s life cycle, it said.

“This supply of locally produced SAF to Changi Airport is a milestone in our journey of supporting the aviation industry and governments in the region to achieve their emissions reduction goals,” said Vice President for Renewable Aviation at Neste Alexander Kueper.

He hoped it would encourage the “wider adoption of SAF across the broader Asia-Pacific region”.

Singapore said in February it would require airlines departing from the country to gradually use low-carbon jet fuel from 2026 as part of industry plans to cut emissions. Airlines will be required to use a jet fuel mix that is 1.0 per cent SAF in 2026, gradually increasing to between 3.0 and 5.0 per cent by 2030. SAFs can comprise up to 50 per cent of jet fuel mixes.

However, SAFs are between three to five times more expensive than conventional jet fuel and authorities will introduce a levy on tickets to help cushion costs.

Aviation is responsible for between two and three per cent of global CO2 emissions but is one of the most difficult industries to decarbonise.

SAFs are seen as the main tool for decarbonising the aviation sector but, apart from the expense, the technology is also still in its infancy.

The International Civil Aviation Organization has set a goal for the industry to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.