Europe’s carmakers should ditch fossil fuels from 2040, Volkswagen (ETR: VOWG_p ) Audi (F: NSUG ) chief executive said on Friday, calling for faster expansion of renewable energy capacity in Bavaria, where Audi is based, and elsewhere.

Discussions around a possible Russian gas embargo in light of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine have increased pressure on companies and governments to expand investment in renewables, with Mercedes-Benz promising new investments in wind and solar power to help power its plants.

“Let’s be brave as Europeans and take the responsibility to completely abandon fossil fuels from 2040,” Markus Duessmann told a conference. “We must put all our energy into battery electric vehicles for individual mobility.”

Audi will stop selling cars with combustion engines from 2033. Its parent Volkswagen will do so from 2035 in Europe and later in China and the United States, it has said.

However, other automakers, such as BMW (ETR: BMWG ), have warned against focusing exclusively on electric vehicle production too soon, as demand for combustion engines remains high.

Germany’s coalition government has said it aims to go coal – free ideally by 2030, and aims to meet all of its electricity needs with supplies from renewable sources by 2035.

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