The Government is set to water down rules mandating the switch to electric vehicles after a backlash from carmakers amid weak sales and job cuts. The Telegraph has more.
Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary, will announce a fast-track consultation on potential policy changes to the phase-out of petrol engines at an industry gathering on Tuesday, it is understood.
The rethink comes after Mr. Reynolds and Louise Haigh, the Transport Secretary, last week met executives from seven carmakers, trade groups and charging firms.
Ministers are expected to emphasise the flexibility open to companies as they seek to meet the zero-emission vehicles (ZEV) mandate, which requires an ever-greater percentage of their sales to be electric over the next six years.
The Government is expected to stress that a final 2030 deadline for new petrol and diesel sales is non-negotiable. However, it is also likely to suggest that carmakers will be able to delay cuts to petrol and diesel sales in the run-up to 2030, provided they make up for it by selling even more electric cars later on.
Such measures should help mitigate any immediate risk of job cuts, lost investment and factory closures, according to one source close to the deliberations.
Ford last week announced that it would cut 800 jobs across Britain amid reduced production of key electric models, while Nissan warned that EV targets risked doing “irreversible” damage to the U.K. industry.
Stellantis, the owner of Vauxhall, has said it could mothball plants in Ellesmere Port and Luton employing 1,000 people unless rules are relaxed.
The Government is nevertheless understood to be reluctant to entertain any shift away from the ZEV quotas themselves.
Worth reading in full.
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The whole policy is and always has been mental illness, to think that the EV brush fits all, insanity!
Its not a mental illness, its a planned destruction of car ownership, only the wealthy will be able to afford the useless, dangerous, expensive EVs.
What use is a car when you can walk or cycle in the 15 minute communities.
Thankfully I think it will all fail, not because they change their minds or back down, but because its all totally magical thinking, certainly on these timescales. You have to be mentally ill to believe any of this idiocy. They don’t believe it themselves (apart from a few imbeciles) but they have their orders from the UN, WEF and Elites.
Would Scalextric cars count as EVs in the sales figures?
Very clever – postponing the complete disaster that will ensue until after the next election.
The hardest to be hit by any hypothesized ridiculous target of phasing out ICE cars by 2030 will be drivers themselves. To suggest that electric or even hybrid cars plus their insurance will be affordable to your average commuter by 2030? Well, pie-in-the-sky doesn’t quite cut it. This will mean that, should this fantasy become reality, a very significant proportion of previous drivers will either be bankrupted by the finance on the car they can’t afford, or they just won’t own one. This introduces extreme lifestyle limitations, like, for example, the small matter of being able to earn a living.
This government wouldn’t shed a single tear if drivers were forced off our roads altogether. It’s an opportunity to exert greater control over us by forcing us onto public transport, reducing our choice of when to travel and how far to travel. Have you ever seen it criticise low traffic neighbourhoods, congestion charging, or low emission zones? They are resolutely anti private vehicles, and if the inadequacies and expense of EVs help get drivers off the roads, they won’t mind one bit..
I must admit I am surprised.
A true communist never backs down.
Economy ruined? People starving? Dead bodies lying in the streets? It doesn’t matter. Their attitude is: we, communists are right, our policies are correct. All of our problems are a result of the population not embracing our ideas with sufficient enthusiasm, so we must use more force, we must be more aggressive, we must clamp down on the saboteurs.
Electric car sales too slow? Ban petrol. Impose a 100% tax. Make people walk.
Don’t give the f@#kers ideas.
Would be great if they’d lead by example once in a while!
There has been a lot of anger not far from me with large numbers of people driving into North Wales to go walking in Snowdonia (sorry meant to call it Eryri now). I recently saw a report with the solution to this problem which showed car parks overflowing and verges overrun with well over a hundred cars. The solution? Two small electric minibuses based in a village in the middle of the national park and an electric bike hire business. No suggestions as to how all of the occupants of the cars were going to get to the village to get on board the bus or hire the bike, but hey, they were electric so a guaranteed solution.
The first step in the inevitable process of walking back from an idiotic and catastrophic policy finally meeting reality.
I admire your optimism, but these people are of the most hubristic kind.
Their aim will not have changed, see MajorMajor below.
This is happening as a reaction to Germany making the same proposal to the EU in order to protect VW, Mercedes and BMW and their subsidiaries.
Moving in lockstep and once again demonstrating that we did not LEAVE the EU.
I gather Vauxhall are now shutting up shop in Luton with a large loss of jobs. We now seem to live in topsy-turvy land, we were told Net-Zero would lead to many new jobs but much of what we hear is job losses.
The Government pushing EVs seems to me much like if they were pushing for us all to switch to using chocolate teapots. It is quite frightening how our Globalist over-lords seem so happy to impose this poor new technology on us and insist we make it work. When the chocolate teapot melts and the tea pours on the floor, they will doubtless blame us for not making the tea properly.
As we all know, it’s got nothing to do with logic – it’s a religion / belief only – we clearly just all need to ‘believe’ harder
The Emperor’s New Parade 2024.
And all the good townsfolk lining the streets bowed and cheered and clapped as the government-sponsored procession of electrical vehicles crawled silently past (turning their heads away from the many that came to a premature halt / spontaneously combusted);
When suddenly a street urchin broke out into a mocking song and dance, ‘Just look at all these naked cars, ha ha ha!’
Shocked gasps were heard all around, and the massed ranks of armed guards advanced menacingly towards the little dissenter;
But almost immediately another laugh emerged from the crowd, one which quickly snowballed into a tsunami of mirth;
And from that day forth fake, offensive and useless vehicles were banished from the kingdom…
Filthy, communist pigs. The country will come to a halt as these cretinous fools in the school yard, upper middle class loving communist Labour party destroys our economy. I really hope these bstards suffer. I want to see these polticians on the street, begging.
With the 2030 deadline is still in place, how does this tiny concession help secure British jobs and the ability to continue buying ICE or hybrids?
It will take a reversal of the net zero nuttiness to secure automotive manufacturing,
Is there a working Carbon Capture and Storage facility anywhere in the world?
I cannot understand this.
A product people don’t want
Forcing production and sales of a product people don’t want.
What could possibly go wrong?
This whole march to the Net Zero cliff edge has been a disaster for the car industry. They can’t make serious long term plans because they don’t know when the next policy u-turn will come along.
The cynic in me says this is all intentional. Successive Western governments have secretly sought to destroy the car industry, because private cars bring autonomy, and autonomy brings power for the individual.
But not to worry if the Western car industry fails, because China will be there with its fossil-fuelled economy, ready to produce the cars we want. Who knows, they might even be ICE cars. China doesn’t seem to care about all this emissions business.
Reality can be such a bitch!
Totally bonkers the whole net zero agenda.