Germany will plead with the EU to allow plug-in hybrids and highly efficient conventional cars to be sold in the bloc even after the effective ban on gasoline and diesel passenger cars in 2035, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Friday as the government looks to prop up its massive but currently ailing auto manufacturing industry. The ruling coalition in Germany has decided to seek some exemptions from the hard deadline of 2035, the chancellor of Europe’s biggest economy said on Friday. In 2023, the EU member states approved an emissions regulation…