ZEV mandate has resulted in £4 billion worth of discounts for EVs – report
Sales of EVs have started to dwindle with 94,000 fewer sales than expected, totalling an 18.7 per cent market share, according to SMMT.
Britain’s transition to EVs has started to raise concerns after analysis has shown the ZEV mandate has led to a total of £4 billion worth of discounts for EVs.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) analysed data taken from one of the country’s leading used car marketplaces – Auto Trader. It looked into its EV discounts as well as its own estimated fleet discounts and investigated data from the EV car market data, too. This has resulted in an estimated £4 billion worth of EV discounts to allow manufacturers to hit the ZEV mandate targets. To achieve these ambitious goals, the government needs to urgently review the state of the problem and rethink how the UK is going to move over to electric vehicles.
Mike Hawes, SMMT chief executive, said: “We need an urgent review of the automotive market and the regulation intended to drive it. Not because we want to water down any commitments, but because delivery matters more than national targets. The industry is hurting; profitability and viability are in jeopardy and jobs are on the line. When the world changes, so must we. Workable regulation, backed with incentives, will set us up for success and green growth over the next decade.”
The ZEV mandate is a government policy that is in place to help transition the UK into battery electric vehicles (BEVs) by the end of the decade. The current target for 2024 is for all major car manufacturers to sell 22 per cent of electric vehicles from its sales fleet. Next year that will increase to 28 per cent and by 2030 it will be 80 per cent.
If the manufacturer doesn’t hit the target it will be fined £15,000 for every vehicle that it sells that does not comply with the mandate.
Today, the government is reviewing the situation with the ZEV mandate after recent backlash from the industry and Vauxhall announcing yesterday that it will be closing its Luton-based van factory, putting 1,100 jobs at risk. Plus, last week, Ford announced that it would be laying off 800 workers in the UK due to the slow demand in EV sales and production.
To date, a total of 94,000 fewer EVs have been registered this year at 363,000 units compared to 455,200 units in 2023 – creating a 18.7 per cent market share – despite a 30 per cent increase in BEV models entering the market compared to December 2023.
