Is it really any surprise that car manufacturers have started refusing to sell us petrol cars? According to Robert Forrester, chief executive of dealership Vertu Motors, anyone trying to buy a petrol car at the moment is likely to be quoted a delivery date into next year.
As I wrote here last December, unless electric vehicles (EVs) enjoyed a sudden rush of popularity, the inevitable result of the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate would be that car manufacturers would be forced to withdraw from the UK market. The reason was coming down the road at us like a three-ton electric SUV. Under ZEV, which began on 1 January this year, manufacturers are obliged to ensure that at least 22 per cent of their sales this year are pure electric models. If they fail to meet this threshold they will be fined £15,000 for every petrol, diesel or hybrid car that they are over the limit.
Trouble is that the demand for full EVs has stalled at around one sixth of the market. In the seven months to the end of July, according to the Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), just 16.8 per cent of cars sold were battery electric vehicles (BEVs). This is marginally above the level of 16.1 per cent in the same month of 2023, but it is nowhere near 22 per cent – and that is in spite of manufacturers bending over backwards with generous discounts on the vehicles. Motorists are refusing to take the bait partly because of the high price of EVs – which still cost around 50 per cent more than the nearest petrol equivalent – and partly because of charging problems. For the third of UK households which do not have off-street parking, an EV remains an impractical and expensive solution – whatever EVs’ evangelical supporters may say. Moreover, EVs tend to be a lot bulkier than the petrol models they are replacing, which makes them far less practical for people who have to park them on the street.
Now the crunch has come, as it was always likely to do in the autumn: car-makers are getting to the point at which they can’t afford to sell many more petrol, diesel or hybrid models this year without risking running into those punitive £15,000 fines. Hence the efforts to push sales into next year. But that will only buy a temporary stay of execution, because next year manufacturers will have to ensure that 28 per cent of vehicles they sell are BEVs – and the proportion rises to 80 per cent by 2030 (or quite possibly 100 per cent if Labour returns to an all-out ban on petrol and diesel cars by 2030, and adds hybrids to the banned list too). If you have pre-sold much of next year’s petrol and diesel quote in advance, life is going to be even more difficult next year.
What can manufacturers do if buyers simply don’t want the EVs which are being pushed at them and opt to keep their old banger running instead? They could try doing as Stellantis (which owns Vauxhall, Peugeot-Citroen and Fiat) did in May: announcing that it is to team up with Chinese electric car maker Leapmotor, whose relatively cheap vehicles it will sell under an Amsterdam-based subsidiary. But while we are seeing more Chinese EVs on the roads, there is no guarantee that buyers would take to these vehicles in their masses, even if price parity with petrol cars could be achieved. That has been made all the more difficult thanks to new EU tariffs of up to 37 per cent on Chinese-made cars.
No-one should be surprised if some manufacturers simply withdraw from the UK market altogether. German car-makers used to call Britain ‘Treasure Island’, so lucrative was our car market. Thanks to the ZEV they may start treating it instead like Snake Island – a place to avoid landing at all costs.
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