You can feel it building. That quiet but unmistakable sense that something has shifted in the automotive world. Not with a bang, but through a series of revealing admissions and policy reversals that suggest the industry charged ahead without properly checking if anyone was actually following.
The European Union has abandoned its outright ban on combustion engines, replacing the 100 percent zero emission target for 2035 with a 90 percent fleet reduction requirement instead. Technology neutrality, they're calling it now. A concession to e-fuels and synthetic options. Or, to put it more plainly, an acknowledgment that the original plan was never going to work.
Porsche, having committed billions to electrification, is now reconsidering internal combustion options for models originally planned as EVs only, including a potential new ICE powered Macan. This from a company that spent the past few years positioning itself as an electric pioneer. The reality check came when Taycan sales plummeted 49 percent in 2024, moving just over 20,000 units compared to the previous year. When your flagship EV takes that kind of hit, you reassess.
And Porsche is hardly alone in this pivot. The entire Volkswagen Group appears to be hedging its bets, extending ICE and hybrid powertrains well into the 2030s for the Cayenne and Panamera. Even the next generation 718 models, once destined to be purely electric, may get combustion options for high end specifications. These aren't minor tweaks to a product plan. They're fundamental strategic reversals happening at unprecedented speed.
Then there are the touchscreens. Remember when burying every function three menus deep on an iPad sized display was supposed to represent progress? Volkswagen design chief Andreas Mindt told Autocar the company would "never, ever make this mistake any more," referring to their over reliance on touch controls. That's quite the admission. Mercedes, Hyundai, and Porsche have all announced plans to restore physical buttons and knobs to their cabins, responding to what they're now calling "screen fatigue."
Studies show touchscreen systems can distract drivers for an average of 40 seconds when programming navigation or adjusting settings, during which a car traveling at 50mph covers half a mile. The European New Car Assessment Program has taken the remarkable step of announcing that, from January 2026, five star safety ratings will require physical controls for critical functions like turn signals, wipers, and hazard lights. They're effectively penalizing the very design trend the industry spent years embracing.
The driver assistance systems present a more complicated picture. Since July 2024, all new cars sold in the EU must include intelligent speed assistance, autonomous emergency braking, lane keeping systems, and drowsiness detection. These features automatically reactivate every time you restart the vehicle, as mandated by regulation. They're designed to save lives, and the European Commission projects they'll prevent more than 25,000 deaths by 2038.
But implementation matters enormously. Some drivers perceive ADAS features as being annoying or distracting, prompting them to switch them off. Lane keep assist that yanks the wheel on country roads. Speed limiters that misread signs and try to slow you from 70 to 30mph on the motorway. Systems that beep, vibrate, and flash warnings with such frequency that you tune them out entirely. The gap between theoretical safety benefits and real world usability remains vast.
What ties all of this together? A growing sense that the automotive industry got swept up in its own vision of the future without pausing to consider whether customers actually wanted that future, or at least wanted it on that timeline. Electric vehicles were mandated before charging infrastructure could support them. Touchscreens replaced buttons because they looked futuristic and saved manufacturing costs, not because they improved the driving experience. Safety systems were legislated into existence with insufficient attention to how intrusive poorly calibrated versions would feel.
The backlash was inevitable. A survey of 2,000 Britons found that 52 percent believe the 2035 EV target will not be met, with 59 percent planning to keep their combustion vehicles on the road as long as possible. That's not climate denial or technophobia. That's pragmatism from people who've looked at the current state of EV technology, charging networks, and vehicle prices and decided the transition isn't ready for prime time.
Consider the speed of these reversals. The EU's original ICE ban was adopted just two years ago, in March 2023. Porsche's electric Macan launched in 2024, yet they're already discussing a combustion successor. Volkswagen championed touchscreen interiors across its ID range, then reversed course within a product cycle. These aren't the measured adjustments of a maturing industry. They're course corrections happening in real time because the original direction proved untenable.
The phrase "technology neutrality" keeps appearing in these discussions, typically as justification for walking back earlier commitments. But it's really code for something simpler: we pushed too hard, too fast, and now we're pulling back. E-fuels and synthetic options provide political cover for keeping combustion engines around longer. Physical buttons are being marketed as premium features when they're simply what worked all along. Extended ICE timelines are framed as customer choice when they're really about survival.
There's something almost admirable about how quickly the industry has pivoted. No lengthy strategic reviews or five year transition plans. Just rapid acknowledgment that the previous approach wasn't working and immediate changes to product portfolios. Whether that's reactive crisis management or genuine responsiveness to market feedback probably depends on your perspective.
What's clear is that we're witnessing a fundamental recalibration of what car buyers actually want versus what they were told they should want. Turns out people quite like knowing where the climate control button is without looking. They appreciate combustion engines that can be refueled in five minutes anywhere in the country. They want safety systems that feel helpful rather than hectoring. None of this should be surprising, yet somehow it caught an entire industry off guard.
The sci-fi future of silent electric pods with gesture controls and hands free driving may still arrive eventually. But not in 2030 or 2035 as originally promised. The grand vision collided with practical reality, and reality won. Manufacturers are now rebuilding their strategies around what customers demonstrate they want through purchasing decisions rather than what focus groups said they might want someday.
Perhaps that's what a genuine crossroads looks like. Not a dramatic fork in the road, but a series of small reversals that collectively represent a major change in direction. The automotive world spent years accelerating toward a specific vision of the future. Now it's pumping the brakes and asking whether that destination was ever realistic in the first place. Based on everything happening right now, the answer appears to be no.
