Vocal Voices

This is at a time when it should be ramping up to meet the target of 22% of all sales with just over three months to go! It will rise to 28% next year and from this year manufacturers will be fined £15,000 for every car under the limit. It goes to 80% by 2030.

The reasons for the drop are numerous. Their upfront cost. Poor charging infrastructure - only 64,632 public electric chargers in the UK and only 37% of them were on-street. That's some way short of the 300,000 promised by 2030. There is still range anxiety and people simply do not want them. Nobody is sure how a government will make up the loss of fuel duty, but they all know that it has to happen.

So... in order to boost sales the car makers want car exchange schemes, tax cuts and more "sweeteners" (bribes) Now guess who will pay for all this? Yes, you and me, Mr and Mrs taxpayer, and we will do it whether or not we want a milk float.

There are 41.5 million vehicles on UK roads and only 1.5 million are BEV or Plug-in hybrids.

100% by 2035 looks very optimistic indeed.

The MP's have made a right mess of it.
Trying to force car manufacturers to hit "challenging targets" which in reality turn out to be rather unrealistic targets.
So what will they do if - as seems very likely - these targets are missed?
Are they going to go ahead and fine car firms? Sticking the boot into firms that are already struggling?
Some European car firms are talking about deliberately rationing the sales of new ICE cars so as to inflate the percentage of EV cars sold.
What a mess.

The SMMT are bricking it.

BEV registrations this year are just below 17% and that is 5% off the government's target. New car registrations for 2024 are expected to be about 1.6 million. A 5% shortfall of the total is a lot of £15,000 fines to soak up.

UK manufacturers might as well give up producing ICE vehicles and go all electric. That really would hit the economy because buyers will still want ICE over EV so imports will soar.

There hasn't been a lot of joined up thinking with all this.