Buyer interest in new electric cars has slumped by nearly two-thirds since the start of last year, new figures released this morning suggest, but Government is full of ideas to push the unwanted products on an unconvinced public. The Mail has the story.
Online vehicle marketplace Auto Trader said it recorded a 65% drop in inquiries for electric cars last month compared with January 2022.
The company’s Road to 2030 report blamed the decline in demand for electric vehicles (EV) on a multitude of factors, including their premium price tags, the cost-of-living crisis, higher interest rates for borrowing and increase in energy prices.
The report follows Elon Musk’s suggestion that he will slash the price of Teslas in the U.S. for a staggering sixth time this year in a bid to rejuvenate demand for the company’s battery vehicles.
The price of Model Y vehicles is to be cut by £2,400 to around £37,743, and the Model 3 vehicle by £1,600 to £32,100.
After a series of cuts, the models are a respective 29% and 15% cheaper in the U.S., its largest market, than at the start of the year.
In response, shares dropped 4% in New York during after-hours trading, adding to its 18% decline in the past six months.
Tesla has already slashed U.K. prices of its new cars various times in the UK in 2023, which in turn has hammered the value of second-hand models in recent months.
Auto Trader’s report published on Thursday said the new EV market is being hampered by a lack of affordable choices, with very few models available priced between £20,000 and £30,000.
The analysis also stated that new EVs are an average of 37% more expensive than petrol and diesel cars. …
The RAC says that many motorists are being priced out of EV ownership, which is resulting in them keeping their older – more polluting – petrol and diesel cars longer.
By doing so, it threatens the Government’s targets to cut air pollution levels in the coming years before the ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars in 2030.
Ministers are currently consulting with industry about the introduction of a Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate from next year, which will require manufacturers to sell an increasing share of electric cars annually in the run up to the ban on sales of all new motors with internal combustion engines.
From 2024, it has outlined that 22% of all sales by each mainstream car maker must be zero emissions at the tailpipe, and by 2030 this sales share will need to rise to 80%.
Failure to meet these objectives would land manufacturers with fines of up to £15,000 per vehicle over the targets set out in the mandate.
The Government hopes that by introducing penalties it will force the hand of vehicle makers to bring more affordable cars to market that more drivers can afford.
Net Zero really is an anti-capitalist’s and statist’s dream, with never-ending cause for heavy-handed Government intervention and regulation to force people to do the ‘virtuous’ thing over the thing they want to do and that is most convenient and affordable for them. Pure coincidence I’m sure. The only downside of course is more people not being able to afford to buy and do stuff – so, er, increased poverty, in other words.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Not nearly enough of a drop.
And of course the sales drop has nothing at all to do with the lack of charging facilities (& costs thereof) and a large difference between the manufacturers’ range promises and the real life range realities!
“The Government hopes that by introducing penalties it will force the hand of vehicle makers to bring more affordable cars to market that more drivers can afford.”
On the contrary what this will do is cause a contraction in the motor industry and people will lose jobs. UBI here we come. 15 minute ghettos, here we come.
For the enslavement that is in the planning the people have to have the means to support themselves removed. And once the population is dependent on the state it will do as it is told:
“Right you lot report tomorrow morning for jab number 10.”
There is a lot of planning going in to the mass kill off and the plebs cannot be allowed to see the trail.
“On the contrary what this will do is cause a contraction in the motor industry”
Correct!
If manufacturers have to sell 22% evs and end up selling nothing like that they will just reduce ice vehicle production to make their share of ev sales look like 22%!
Ergo, the motor industry shrinks to the point that mass production is no longer viable, so they close! It won’t be worth the investment on such a small return to keep a massive car plant and all its jobs afloat.
Everything that is wrong with Government meddling in one paragraph right there.
The ten worst words in the English language “I’m from the Government and I’m here to help you”. Credited to Ronald Reagan?
I’m pretty sure that soon after I started with a multinational co. in 1970 the slightly demotivating ‘We’re from Head Office and we’re here to help you’ was widely known.
The government meddling in end-to-end encryption, WhatsApp and others threaten to pull out of the UK.
Government threaten car manufacturers with sanctions if they don’t make/sell more electric cars.
i wonder what the car industry will do? In the scheme of things how much is the UK car market worth to the manufacturers?
Haven’t many countries (e.g. Germany) now scrapped their ban on “more polluting petrol and diesel cars”?
Yep. Being the home of BMW, Mercedes Benz and VAG, with all that means to the German economy, it’s no surprise to see these manufacturers leaning on their government
Quite.
If the public do not want to buy EVs then the only way manufacturers can meet the 22% mandate by 2024 will be to limit the number of petrol and diesel cars sold. If the government pushes through with this objective then expect to have a long wait for a new petrol car, and expect to pay about the same price as an EV
We all know that it is not so much about a switch to electric as it is a plan to cut car production and get the plebs off the road.
All the more so when the firm involved is operating in a narrowish ‘pool”, i.e. one nation. It’s worth noting that BMW Mini was interested in manufacturing the EV version (made in Oxford), because it could tot up the numbers across the whole market, so that they are making a larger proportion of their EV total across the field, at the same time as making what they really want – relatively large petrol and diesel engines in Germany. They could comply with the EU policy, and no doubt make a higher profit on their other products.
“They” are insane and utterly EVIL.
I know they are a fire hazard but imagine being T Boned by one full of its wonderful batteries ! ZEV ! there – it’s name has been dropped ! It’s where we are headed !
How can the daft so and so’s (I would use much stronger language if I could) who decided all this think that it could ever work? Out today, the roads seemed extra busy for some reason, and I look at all these thousands of cars one sees on a normal trip out, and it is obvious to me that there is no way on earth they can all be replaced by electric vehicles, for all the many reasons that are frequently pointed out. The whole thing is just totally and utterly bonkers. I can’t decide if my other half and I will be left carless, isolated and ignored in our rural home in years to come, along with countless other people. Oh, and of course, they are supposed to be banning our oil fired boilers as well shortly. Actually, I think they are more likely to keep many of these things, but force you to pay twice – once for the actual item or service, and then again in a swingeing tax for having the temerity to want to drive to and from work (when no alternative public transport is provided anyway) and then not freeze to death when you get home.
We need a revolution.
The French had one & they’ve still ended up with Macron
In France, there are fields full of disused/unused ‘city’ EVs.
Whoopee doo ….. a £2500 price reduction ….. so it would still cost twice as much as my lovely little Hyundai i10.
And I still wouldn’t be able to charge it where I live.
And they still haven’t fixed the “range anxiety” issue. 450 miles, when I fill up my i10.
Yesterday, filled up my lovely, comfortable 13yr old diesel Merc (105k miles on the clock) for £85. That’ll be enough for another 500 miles; I’m confident I’ll get another 95k miles before trading it for another oil burner.
A classic example of the law of unintended consequences. As with any Government decision as they all come from the blob who live and work in London and think the rest of the country is just like their daily experiences. Idiots.
Resident Bidens gas guzzling entourage is all you need to know. Similar to Covid-19, it’s a hoax. Just ignore the government
I recall having a discussion about electric cars with someone who owned one. He said to me “Have you ever driven an electric car”? I replied “No”. So he said “So there you are then”——-I told him I was not criticising electric cars they are just a piece of technology, but what I am criticising is government policy that tries to coerce me into one. It is the same with all aspects of green ideology and government policy. They pick the winners and losers and then first comes the nudge, then comes the push. If wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars, and every other bit of pretend to save the planet technology is really so good and so economical, people will use it because they know best how to spend their own money. It is called the Free Market. But when it comes to anything classed as green, government interfere so heavily that it can no longer be classed as a free market, which leads to investors only interested in a technology so they can farm the heavy subsidies and customers buying things because of the bribe or the mandates that are there to force them out of their diesel or petrol car or to stick a solar panel on their roof etc etc etc. ——————The ultimate goal of all the GREEN CRAP is the NET ZERO impoverishment which was never even voted on and was simply waved through parliament. But most people have no idea the extent of the suffering this will cause. They think all we need to do is get rid of coal, gas, petrol and diesel, stop eating steak and everything will tick along just fine. ——————NOPE It won’t.
So true. That a govt feels the need to ‘pick’ anything, demonstrates it’s *not* a winner. They only pick losers or things that enables them to feed in the trough.
“older – ‘more polluting’ [than EVs] – petrol and diesel”! Taking in the whole lifecycle, really?
I wouldn’t have one if it was free they are an abomination to humanity extremely harmful to the environment, totally impractical and of course help to enslave children and cause even more poverty worldwide.
This is great!
Speech by Congressman Tom McClintock 5th District of California about climate madness.
Available to view at https://t.co/138tfqsC2z
On the one hand, you want to mandate not only electric cars but industrial-scale backup batteries for wind and solar farms all in the name of saving the planet. Yet on the other hand you want to radically restrict mining, also in the name of saving the planet. Well, you can’t do both. You’ve been moderately successful at mandating electric cars. The California bureaucrats have just imposed such a mandate on Californians over the next decade. About 3% of vehicle sales are now electric so Congratulations only 97% more to go, and we don’t need to get into a discussion today about where you think the electricity for your electric cars is going to come from, about 80% of our electricity still comes from the very fossil fuels that your waging war against and you’re creating devastating shortages by doing that… we’ll save that for another day, but let’s just look at the mining requirements.
In order to meet your electric car mandate specifically a 6-fold increase in demand over the next decade; we’re going to need 384 additional graphite, lithium, nickel and cobalt Mines by 2035 according to industry forecasts, expensive recycling mandates will only reduce this number this 336 new mines we’re going to need. In fact according to the international energy agency, an electric car requires 6 times the mineral inputs of a comparable internal-combustion vehicle and 6 times the mining to produce a comparable car.
And of course, copper is a critical component in this technology and copper is what you’re trying to shut down in the matter before us today. If it is your contention that the mining required to produce electric cars is a threat to the environment.
Then you were also admitting that the electric cars that require it, are a threat to the environment. Can’t you see how foolish and self-destructive and absurdly contradictory these policies have become? Can’t you see yet, the damage that you’re doing not only to the environment but to people’s lives? Yeah, as you make it harder and harder to mine the components to meet your mandates, the expense of those materials rises dramatically. We’re already seeing that at the gas pumps and in our utility bills and it’s not just electricity it’s everything these minerals could be used for if they were more efficiently applied. When something is scarce it becomes expensive, you’re making all of the things that we depend upon for our quality of life more scarce and therefore more expensive.
You’re fixated on a 1-degree rise in global temperatures over the next century, but you couldn’t care less that you’re making it financially impossible for many people to heat their homes in sub-freezing winters. Europe is now reverting to burning wood to survive this winter. This is not going to end well for humanity and it’s not going to end well for your party as more and more people connect the dots between your policies and the conditions that they are now suffering. You need to stop this. The resolution before us should at least shed some light on the inexplicably absurd decisions your administration made, to unilaterally work toward a bipartisan legislative act and to impede one of the most important copper mines in America. And frankly, you need this information more than we do because maybe, it would dissuade you from continuing with the childish fantasies and the self-destructive policies that you are going to be held responsible for both by voters and by history.
The idea that we are going to transfer to electric just gives cover to cut oil and gas. It is becoming ever more clear that they do not want us to have electric cars either.