Car makers could be forced to sell a rising share of electric cars each year in the UK to accelerate the move to zero-emission vehicles, according to reports in the media.
The Times have reported that ministers are considering a California-style ‘zero emission vehicle mandate’, which would be similar to that launched in California in the 1990s and force a minimum volume of plug-in cars to be sold by car makers each and every year.
Some MPs feel that the mandate would be a good way of shifting the UK population towards buying electric vehicles, acting as an additional method of bridging the proposed ban on sale of new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars by the end 2035.
Under a proposed zero emissions mandate, car makers would need to sell an increasing volume of zero emission vehicles as a rising share of their overall sales.
If they fail to meet their sales target, they would be able to purchase credits from other car makers to make up the difference. It is not clear what would happen to a car maker if they don’t earn enough credits through zero emissions sales in a year, one guesses a fine or penalty.
The government has said it would consider a mandate in a response to a Committee on Climate Change report published in the summer. It said that there was a real need to ‘go further than the existing regulatory regime to reduce CO2 emissions from road transport’, and that it was looking into a zero emissions mandate as part of the government’s “Transport Decarbonisation Plan”.
Demand for pure electric cars in 2020 is at a record high. More than 66,600 pure electric vehicles have been bought by the end of September, which is a massive year-on-year increase of 184 per cent. Electric-only cars account for 5.4 per cent of all vehicle registrations in the UK.
If a mandate was put in place to force car makers to sell a rising number of electric only vehicles in their range, it would allow the government to retract subsidies and tax incentives, such as the £3,000 Plug-in Car Grant and VED road tax exemption. The Government has made no secret that it wants to phase out the availability of electric-car deals, which it outlined in its Road to Zero document in summer 2018.
In that report the Government said: ‘As the market becomes better established and more competitive, the need for direct government financial support will decrease. We therefore expect to deliver a managed exit from the grant in due course and to continue to support the uptake of ultra low emission vehicles through other measures.’
[“Parking spot for electric vehicles only” by marcoverch is licensed under CC BY 2.0]
The Government are expected to announce their plans to bring forward the ban on new petrol, diesel, hybrid cars from 2035 to 2030. MPs are urging the Prime Minister to accelerate the ban so that the Government can achieve its target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.
The plans would dramatically accelerate the transition to zero-emission vehicles, expected to be announced later this year alongside a series of new clean energy policies. Downing Street had intended to unveil the blueprints in September, but the recent health crisis prevented it from occurring.
The change of ban date, backed by the Committee on Climate Change, is likely to be set out by the Government alongside plans for Britain to become a carbon-neutral economy by 2050.
Greenpeace UK’s head of politics, Rebecca Newsom, gave her full support to a mandate. She said: ‘Moving the ban on petrol, diesel and hybrid cars and vans forward to 2030 is an absolute must if the government is to meet its legally binding climate commitments. Any later and it becomes almost impossible.
‘But a ban alone won’t see this change take place without the policies that force it over the line. That’s why a zero emissions vehicle mandate for car manufacturers would be an incredibly smart move to bring new jobs to UK.
In order to dangle the carrot for people buying a new car, the government must use the stick with manufacturers to ensure costs come down and sales go up.’
Drivers expect to go electric by 2025
A new survey by breakdown firm Green Flag has said the average UK driver now expects to purchase an electric car within the next four years.
A poll of 1,500 drivers found that more than half (54 per cent) are in favour of electric cars, with fuel savings and being eco-friendly the biggest perks, followed by lower servicing an maintenance costs and the convenience of being able to charge a vehicle at home.
Mark Newberry, commercial director at Green Flag, said: ‘Our research has found that the main concern for drivers converting to electric is running out of charge mid-journey. Try to think back to the last time that you broke down because you ran out of petrol?
‘We want to reassure drivers that it only takes a few small adjustments to enjoy an electric vehicle – if you look after your car, prepare for your journey and drive carefully you should see minimal changes to your driving routines.’
Do you think its a good a idea to force car manufacturers to sell a rising amount of zero emissions vehicles each year and should we ban the sale of new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars forward to 2030? Let us know in the comments below.
I think its important that we look at ways to move way from fossil fuels, but making the deadline shorter by 5 years is not going to help the situation. It will likely lead to a massive transport crisis for those drivers unable to afford zero emissions vehicles and take them off the road for good. Perhaps this is part of the Government’s agenda, who knows.
Smacks of Big Brother to me, you will drive what we tell you or else not at all. As a pensioner there’s no way I could ever afford any new car let alone an electric one, my 5-year-old diesel is going to last me until I’m no longer able to drive.
Relax, your diesel car will still be allowed. The sale of brand-new I.C.E. vehicles will be banned after certain date; existing I.C.E. vehicles will be unaffected.
Allowed..but for how long. We all know that what is ok one minute is not the next. I am in a similar situation to DaveB…no way in hell can l afford ot even consider an electric vehicle…u less l stop eating or having any heating for a good frw years, and that is not about to happen
Same here Dave B
We are not ready as a country for the electrification of all road vehicles by any means. Where are we getting all this low emission electricity from? Nobody is talking about hydrogen powered cars which are a much more pragmatic solution. We can use spare solar and wind power to generate hydrogen like having a battery. Easy to top up your car with hydrogen like having a petrol vehicle so you don’t have to hang around for half an hour or so while your electric battery charges up!
Myth; Ofgem has already said that there is enough capacity in the grid.
Interesting, only a year or so ago we were facing potential power black outs due to some nuclear plants having reached their useable life and that was before the use of electric cars for all.
All the big fuel companies had garage forecourt owners on a stranglehold with hydrogen. They said that any of them thinking of installing hydrogen fuelling facilities would have their normal fuel of diesel + petrol withdrawn.THAT is the reason why hydrogen has been forcibly witheld né blocked from being made available as THE only viable and sensible fuel of choice for motorists and indeed manufacturers.
Electric cars are now affordable unlike 18 months ago when nothing really existed.
Currently charging can take as little as 15 mins if your charging a Tesla.
Don’t misunderstand about the banning of new Internal Combustion Engines…this only relates to NEW vehicles, existing vehicles can carry on using fossil fuels because Petrol and Diesel will still be available to use.
Hydrogen fuel isn’t suitable for cars as it’s not widely available whereas large commercial vehicles can carry much more but even these are going Electric if only for convenience.
Large commercial vehicles going electric ? Which fantasy magazine did you tead that in. The Teala truck can only do about 10 to 20 miles before the diesel engine starts so that it can continue. The amount if battery power tequired for a 40ft articulated lorry would require the whole trailer…just to go between charge points…no room to carry any cargo.
If only they were hydrogen powered..job done.
You’ll need a second trailer to carry the hydrogen required to travel the same distance as electric. Hydrogen doesn’t compress very well and the tanks are very heavy in order to contain the extreme pressures. BMW had the best hydrogen prototype to date and even they gave up on it because of the pathetic range.
nonsense. The Toyota Mirai has a range of 340 miles and unlike electric refueling takes less than 5 min.
in what world are electric cars affordable? the closest equivalent to my personal car (10 year old Euro 5 diesel, as its all i can afford) is a Tesla Model S. my car is slightly shorter but theres very little in it. model 3 is too small and i dont like high vehicles.
so lets say i can buy a brand new version of my car, at full list price. the cheapest model in the UK is (last i checked) is around £24k. the cheapest Model S, on the other hand has recently had a £10k price reduction applied but is still £73k, so STILL TRIPLE the price.
if i offset the cost of servicing my car to the cost of electricity, then i could buy a LOT of fuel for the £50k extra, PLUS i wouldnt need to find ALL the extra cost up front (i dont lease or finance my cars)
My current car has a range of over 700 miles in regular motorway useage (and i use it often enough for it to be known) and can be ‘recharged’ in around 15-20 mins and good for another 700+ miles (with a second driver or the next day if needed) unlike the ‘claimed’ 400 miles from the top of the range Tesla. which to then get a ‘full’ charge even on a supercharger takes 2 hours i believe.
ass to that, the fact that i can (and do) use my car as a towcar regularly, (which very few EVs can be used for) then EVs are neither affordable OR practical.
yes you can buy a nissan leaf for about similar money to my current car BUT its neither practical nor big enough for my needs. prior to redundancy i was covering 2500-3000 miles per WEEK (hence why i used diesel cars) which would be impossible with an EV. and its a very expensive way to go about living life with a car unsuitable for your needs. what id need is a 3-400 mile range, (minimum) even when towing with a decent capacity, with a maximum 15 min recharge time (on any charger), and with the luggage space for real suitcases (not a litre capacity) of cars like the Ford Mondeo, Vauxhall insignia, etc
Apart from the extra expense an electric car is fine provided you have somewhere to charge it. We live in a first floor flat and therefore do not have the ability to install a charging point. This obviously means that every time I want to recharge I would need to find a charging point and sit there for hours while the car recharges. What an inconvenience. I would also point out that recharging points seem to be few and far between.
The infrasture is not in place for total electric car use, not to mentin the minefield of different charging station companies not being compatible with each other. I live in a block with a private car park for 21 cars for 30 flats, I would need to use a massive extension) 100m+)cable to reach my car and there really isn’t the space to install charging posts for all the cars without digging up and removing the green space.
How are people living in high-rise blocks of flats and terrace houses expected to be able to charge electric vehicles? Most of these people are not able to park outside their homes, sometimes parking streets away.
Just wait a while. The hydrogen fuel debate will change your choice of pollution-free vehicle, when new means of biologically manufactured hydrogen are perfected, resulting in a vastly cheaper product.
Yes, yes, yes, get on with No10
Car manufacturers have enough of a struggle to stay in business without the government giving them financial penalties if they do not sell a higher portion of electric cars. Coronavirus will have a large impact of the family budget, both from people having less wages and at some point higher taxes to pay for the billions spent by the government, not to mention the impact of Brexit. If the government want the use of electric cars to be accelerated, they must first put the infrastructure in place, including additional power stations and then subsidise the purchase of an electric car to make it attractive.
electric vehicles also need to be practical for all. currently they arent. i need a bigger car than a nissan leaf etc, and a car that can tow. Ford Mondeo, Vauxhall Insignia etc are perfect sizes, but with EV would currently be useless for range, recharge time etc and cant yet be used as towcars.
In all this headlong rush to using EV’s have any of the legislators stopped to check how much CO2 is produced by each EV during its manufacture? Particularly of the batteries. A study published by the University of Munich in 2019, suggested that a Tesla model 3 caused around 15-tonnes of CO2 emissions, before it reaches the user. An equivalent sized Mercedes C-class diesel 7-8 tonnes. They reckoned that the C-class diesel could be driven for between 5-10 years before it caught up with the Tesla’s CO2 production. Depending on how much of the charging electricity was produced from fossil fuels.
The Californian legislation quoted as a comparator in this article, has more to do with reducing smog in the LA basin, than with climate change. The two separate problems are being confounded.
By far the best thing for the environment and climate change, is to carry on using your existing, fuel efficient diesel car, for another 200,000 miles . Which any of them can do, given proper maintenance. Rather than cause ANY new car to manufactured at all. Of the total life CO2 emissions, as much is produced during manufacture of the ICE vehicle as during use.
Quote “Mark Newberry, commercial director at Green Flag, said: ‘Our research has found that the main concern for drivers converting to electric is running out of charge mid-journey. Try to think back to the last time that you broke down because you ran out of petrol?”
T wonder how invested Green Flag are in electric vehicles?
What a stupid statement – you don’t run out of petrol because of its greater range and for the VAST amount of places you can buy it at!! OK if you can afford £50K for a Tesla but charging places in rural areas will be non profitable and hence non-existent.
Do it now and save lives and the planet. I’ve been driving full electric cars now for 10years and never run out of power The driving is much more relaxing as well. Filling up with electric power about £2.00 a no brainier Pete
If everyone in the UK switched to electric vehicles overnight, it would barely register any change to planets climate. It might make you feel less guilty about adding to the planets CO2, but in the end of the day the UK is barely the size of a single cog in a mammoth global gear train dominated by larger nations.
Even a single super freighter (ship) puts out more CO2 and sulphur pollutants in a year than all the vehicles in the UK.
Lets face facts and take our heads out from the sand. Mankind is wasteful, feeding on resources at an alarming rate and the by product is yet more emission. It would take a gargantuan effort by all countries to reverse this escalating climate trend.
do you have to tow? do you need to cover 600+ miles per day? until recently i did both and EVs are USELESS for those uses. and in rural areas, charging is patchy at best. i have neither the desire nor the ability to sit at charging points for hours. full charge needs to be 15 mins max.
You must be doing minimal mileage for that charge cost. Not 20K+ per year, into rural areas.
Has your car got 7 seats?
Isn’t it time existing efficient diesel cars with low emission particulate filters can have NOx filters made commercially & viably available, even subsidised. Bosh have one. It can’t be green to crush well made cars that could be made to last for many more years & have already used valuable resources simply to then make more for a flawed replacement path.
The next phase should be to then bring in hydrogen cars not electric to gradually replace worn out cars. Hydrogen – Water in, water out. 0 emissions but 0 tax collected by government from water.! Is the issue more about money Tax & jobs not a greener future? How do you power your lecy car.. plug it in from nuclear or coal powered source. V little renewables to meet the demand. Then there is all the energy used to create the infrastructure.
Join the dots governments please!
Unfortunately it isn’t as simple as just fitting a Nox, Co2 or any other filter and assuming it will work.
Depending on how restrictive the filter is, it will end up changing the back pressure and make the engine run worse, ultimately producing more pollution not less. Most likely the vehicle will need the engine management software to be recalibrated to start with.
Only way around it would be vehicle manufacturers to offer this as a climate upgrade, but it wont come cheap.
I would never go fully electric. I had a Toyota prius hybrid and I started getting battery problems after about a year. I was told that a battery has an average life of about 8 years. I was quoted £6000 for a new hybrid battery. In a few years owners of electric cars are likely to suffer from the same problem. A battery can only be recharged so many times and will not last forever.
yES i WOULD HOPE TO HAVE AN ELECTRIC CAR WITHIN THE NEXT 2 YEARS
Think of the last time you ran out of petrol??? The reason people seldom run out of petrol is because you can go into a garage and refuel in less than 5 mins! Try finding a place on a long journey that’s going to do that. The cars will be plugged in whilst people go for a meal or wander around the shops etc, whilst we’re stuck in a que waiting on them to return to plug in ours!
Also, watch the price of our electricity bills rise at home while the fat cats line their pockets yet again!
Many people rarely if ever by new cars. Who wants 2nd hand electric cars with older battery technology. Electric cars remain very expensive. Many Batteries are Chinese made. Rare earth components, again mainly Chinese are not widely available elsewhere. At present the need is for the car industry is to sell cars in great numbers of all types and makes to give a boost to the industry so desperately needed. A return to substantial profitability and a re-invigorated car industry is a priority. Only then can the industry afford to pursue major innovation while selling a lot of cars whether green or otherwise. Reliance on electric only cars is a route to disaster as electricity in such quantities is neither sustainable or reliable
How about asking Royal Mail, Amazon and Tesco to switch to electric vehicles.
good idea
No VED , No Congestion charge , No ULEZ seems that getting an electric vehicle is the solution and manufacturers should bring them in line with their petrol or deisel equivalents or at least reduce them to real world prices. However this seems like a money saving exercise by the government and what do they mean by removing the zero VED on electric vehicles is this another trick by the government the same as it was when they encouraged people to buy deisel then slapped them with higher tax.
Shows how untrustworthy every subsequent government in this country has been.
the motorist has been a cash cow for motorists for decades. if we all had electric cars, they would lose that cash cow, hence the need for a VED on them and a replacement for all the taxes levied on fuel.
Why on electric car advertisements do they not show the sale price? When will commercial vehicles Buses & Wagons be included? Also, aircraft and shipping, a Cargo Ship or Cruise Ship can spend days in port with all huge its oil powered electric generators running are they going to be Zero Rated?
I trust that special allowances will be made for electric cars that are mainly used in hilly parts of the country? OK as usual for those in flat areas like the SOUTH. Vehicles use more fuel on hills; therefore, an electric car will need charging more often.
Is it going to be the usual hit what is seen to be the week?
Not everyone can either afford an all electric car nor have the facility to plug-in to a socket if they live in a terraced house or don’t have a garage. Hybrid is a better and more practical way and hydrogen even better , but nothing appears to be happening with hydrogen!
Utter bollocks! I won’t ever be buying one. Greenpeace should focus on China. We pale into insignificance compared to their emissions.
No its not a good idea to force car manufacturers to sell only electric cars. I for one would not be able to charge one at home as I live in a first floor flat and I don’t think I can remember seeing a charging point in Bournemouth. Is the government suggesting that If I want to charge my car I would have to find an elusive charging point and sit there for hours waiting for the car to charge up. Unless there are charging points in every street the idea is ridiculous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lancashire County Council would not let me use an electric vehicle because I had no off street parking and the trailing wires would cause a trip hazard.
What new regulations will allow these new recharging points in residential streets, how many sockets will be on each charging point, how will the usage be regulated, I do around 200/250 miles a day, as an on call industrial breakdown engineer, and given current technology would need to recharge daily.
Will the National Grid be upgrading their supply lines after the national power cuts last week.
What the sad point is that currently electric vehicles still produce CO2, as unless you plug it into your own solar panels and wind turbines (what would happen on a dark winters night with no wind), your electrical energy is only made up at best of 18% green energy the rest produces CO2.
Don’t believe your electrical supply saying that they only supply green energy as this is impossible for them to do as they all buy energy off the National Grid and the power supplied to your home is a complete mixture of power from green to dirty produced power.
Even nuclear power is dirty when you consider the amount of CO2 produced to construct the nuclear power station and it decommissioning and the storage of all its waste over thousands of years, the actual mining of the Uranium ore and its processing produces very large amounts of CO2.
All this debate about the polluting effects of ICE motor vehicles is surely only part of the discussion. There are no references to the polluting effects of building news private motor cars to pacify consumers passion for change for change sake. For many car owners/users and perhaps most, their private motor car is merely a fashion accessory. Their car is something to cherish and boasts about and to be able to satisfy that infatuation they will seek to change their cars typically as often as every three years, especially on PCPs, and some consumers quite irrespective of their annual mileage being very low, will change their cars almost as often as they may change their underwear! Indeed, I know of several (usually retired) extremely low mileage car owners who will PE their ‘old’ cars with around 6000 miles on the clock to have a new car every three years without fail ‘just because they like to have a new car’. Many will argue and why not if they can afford to do that, but that most certainly does not address the debate of the polluting effect of new cars production. Of course, the counter argument for that is those who buy new cars are then releasing their cast-offs into the market for those who cannot afford to buy new and that is to some extent a valid point. However, given that certainly over the past twenty years most cars have been built to exceptional standards of comfort and reliability, unless one is driving very high mileages there would seem to be very little justification for a change other than that of acquisition of something with which to impress the neighbours or one’s mates down at the pub.
I have owned and run just two cars since 1999 and the one I have now is in its eleventh year. It is to all intents immaculate, has a mere 55.5k miles on the clock, is remarkably comfortable, has virtually all of the bells and whistles that car makers will have us believe are essentials without which we cannot live and it has been remarkably reliable. Its only down-side is the iniquitous Vehicle Tax which is unfairly apportioned against low mileage users, but I can live with that against the depreciation of a new vehicle and I will argue my car owning pollution footprint to be substantially less than that of those who lust after a new car at at every verse end. However, I will acknowledge too that I am a useless consumer for the automotive industry, apart from the few bits and pieces of part essential to regular servicing.
As for the so called ‘zero emission’ vehicle, that is a contradiction in terms. Anything that is converted from finite natural resources into a finished product cannot possibly be ‘ZERO’ polluting. To say so is a confidence trick, a myth promoted by the automotive industry and perpetuated by politicians, the main emphasis for whom is that of promoting their self interests with little or no vested interests in promoting truths. What’s more, unless, or until, scientists and engineers can magic up some remarkable conjuring tricks, the electric vehicle end of life is likely to be at least as polluting if no more so than is its old fashioned fossil fuelled version.
The reality is that as long as we are wedded to our private transport (and far too many aspects of the alternatives are generally dire) we shall all pollute simply by our perpetual and selfish fashion demands for ‘new’. The suggest otherwise just being mealy mouthed.
Absolutely ridiculous. Can’t make traders sell until you persuade purchasers to buy. There are many obstacles to having a Plug In fully electric car, least of all the adequate availability of quick charge refuelling points everywhere. All new builds must be mandated to have double charging points integrated with car parking spaces. Adequate power supply capacity must be assured in all areas BEFORE proceeding.
On the second line! “zero-emission vehicles” There is no such thing as a zero-emission vehicle.
Also it would be interesting to know how many of electric cars sold are a second car in the household parked next to the Range Rover?
No eelectric vehicle produced yet give satisfactory mileage range when towing a caravan – so no incentive to purchase electric vehicle at this time