Ed Miliband’s new Net Zero targets requiring the tripling of electric vehicle sales in just three years are not credible, carmakers have warned. The Telegraph has more.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said the Energy Secretary’s latest so-called carbon budget implied electric vehicle (EV) sales need to triple in just three years.
This was “highly unlikely” on current trends, the industry lobby group said, even though demand has risen significantly.
New figures published on Thursday showed that 24% of new car sales were electric in the first five months of this year. However, the proportion remains well below the government target of 33% for 2026.
Miliband’s latest carbon budget is based on modelling that assumes 95% of sales will be electric by 2030. The SMMT said that “if such targets are to be credible, then equally ambitious fiscal and investment support would be essential”.
Mike Hawes, the SMMT’s Chief Executive, said the figure was not realistic given current demand.
He said: “The EV transition is progressing, but consumer uptake still lags behind even today’s targets, let alone the ambition set out in the latest carbon budget.
“While industry shares the long-term ambition, the pathway to Net Zero must be credible. It cannot come at the cost of lost competitiveness and deindustrialisation.
“A review of the transition is now urgent to ensure we have a sustainable path to road transport decarbonisation.”
The seventh carbon budget, backed by Miliband on Tuesday, sets a target to reduce Britain’s total emissions by 87%, compared with 1990 levels, by 2040. It is based on modelling by the independent Climate Change Committee (CCC).
The Government said the SMMT was “wrong” to claim that the new carbon budget would impose a higher target for EV sales and that alternative ways of meeting it were possible.
A spokesman added: “We value the Climate Change Committee’s independent advice, but that does not mean we have to replicate its pathway.”
However, the overall budget is legally binding, meaning the emission savings would have to be found elsewhere if EV sales do not accelerate.
Worth reading in full.
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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.
It’s time someone found Milipede a nice padded cell somewhere, with a jacket that has long sleeves and ties at the back to keep him warm when the solar heating goes off at night.
This is why you have to fight interventionist nannies the moment they start imposing their first target. Because, like the Terminator, they will never stop: let them get away with something only slightly stupid, and they’ll come back months or a year later, pushing for more.
Sorry if that sounds paranoid: it’s been proved again and again.
“The SMMT said that “if such targets are to be credible, then equally ambitious fiscal and investment support would be essential”…”. So, more Net Zero subsidies you mean?
He never explains how all said EVs are going to be charged, I live in a block of flats(100) not one charger, nowhere near a petrol station with chargers, and if I and others were to go to the nearest one, it couldnt accomodate 100 cars, assuming all bought one, no issue if someone wants one, but using it as an “enviromental” issue is ludicrous, it costs the planet not saves it.
You could also inquire into whether the mains electric grid connection to your block – adequate for 100 flats – is up to the load of charging even 50-60 EVs simultaneously… I’d put a modest bet on what the answer would be…
Come 2029 and insane Millibrain and Liebour will be gone. The SMMT need to hold their nerve.
Come 2029 the incoming government had better have a long list of regulations, regulators and laws to change.
First thing to do will be to replace ALL the civil servants who will be trying to stop the incoming government’s reforms.
Miliband, doing what he WEF overlords want him to do.
Only a few days ago Tony Blair himself asked why this policy of getting to Net Zero, WHEN NOBODY ELSE IS?
Then last week we had a rare (for the MSM) view of one of China’s hundreds of coal mines, due to a bad accident. The site looked brand spanking new and modern.
As well as providing 65% of it’s electricity from over 1,100 coal-fired power stations, China is building hundreds more in China and around the world:
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/29/716347646/why-is-china-placing-a-global-bet-on-coal?t=1579949224074
https://www.mining.com/subscribe-login/?id=898342
Then there’s India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Africa…
Bite me, Ed, if it ain’t 1202 it just won’t do!
Not again. The Daily Milibund strikes again. When will this site change its name to reflect its obsession with showing a portrait of Milibund every day?
The battery car bunch usually lie about their sales by focussing on a percentage figure and avoiding real numbers. Given that manufacturers have been deliberately reducing the supply of petrol and diesel cars, has the overall number of sales dropped making it appear that there has been an increase in battery car sales, excluding all the Jaecoos that went up in flames at Southampton docks. And are most of the battery car purchases lease purchases where they will be handed back after 3 or 4 years, building up the problem of selling used battery cars that few people want to risk buying.
Personally, I bought a diesel van which will do about 1,000 miles on a full tank and is good for another 200k miles if looked after. Compare that to a friend with an electric Jag who had to recharge twice en route and overnight on a recent visit, paid £3,600 for 4 tyres and lost £40k off the resale value after 2 years from new
I drove an electric van 450 miles a few weeks ago, moving stuff. That’s all the van-hire company had. Never again!
This is an existential threat, so the response to those that espouse it should be exactly the same.
The english political settlement of a constitutional monarchy and an elected government sovereign, but answering to an electorate, which is not a bad system when implemented in good faith was arrived at after 1000 years of intermittent violence and occasional beheadings burnings and HDQ.
If the current incumbents of westminster palace refuse to engage with our peacefully but forcefully expressed concerns, then it is incumbent on us, as counterparty to the political and constitutional settlement, to resort to these tried and tested methods.
They should be physically scared of our rage.
It’s not, and never has been, a parlour game.
Miliband doesn’t care about being “credible”. Zealots don’t.
The Government’s statement about the new carbon budget was infuriating and laughable in equal measure, especially the bits that implied the transition would be “consumer led”. The problem is that consumers are not leading the way into the net zero Nirvana the government envisages. EVs and heat pumps are not enticing the majority, we enjoy eating meat and dairy, we enjoy going away on foreign holidays, and we’d like to get back to cheaper electricity produced from our own coal and gas.
Consumers will lead the energy transition in much the same way as slaves led the building of the Colosseum in Rome.
Quite, they can take my diesel out of my cold, dead hands.
“…emission savings would have to be found elsewhere if EV sales do not accelerate.”
So what will Miliband do? Order a mass cull of the population to stop people from exhaling perhaps?
Stopping the boats and deporting a million or more people who shouldn’t be in the UK would result in an instant reduction in emissions.
Yea but that won’t happen.
BIK is going up on EVs. Congestion charge up, too. Lowers the incentive to buy a more expensive car.
“A review of the transition is now urgent to ensure we have a sustainable path to road transport decarbonisation.”
Evidently, Mr Hawes is a bit thick. Or he also hates the car industry. Not quite as much as Miliwatt, perhaps.
Hawes drives a Tesla – ’nuff said.
You think the Net Zero gangsters care?
Since when do gangsters care about those they extort? If the business they’re extorting collapses, something else will take its place and they’ll extort them.
Anyone who thinks that our establishment is anything other than an elaborate extortion operation is sleep walking through life.
💯
It doesn’t matter what they say. Miliwatt hates them, and everything the motor vehicle represents, to name but a few,
Freedom of movement
Freedom of choice
Free enterprise
Travel
Life
Joy
Invention
Endeavour
Courage
Spirit
Discovery
Long live the internal combustion engine.
Especially my new one …… I hope it sees me out 🙂
I’ll be collecting my new, petrol driven, Hyundai i10 next week. I got forced into doing it a bit earlier than I’d intended because the car is now being withdrawn as the Eco Tyrants attempt to force everyone to buy an EV… which where I live is completely impractical.
Someone else will be using my old i10, which will probably keep going for another 10 years if it’s looked after.
Ed Minibrain.
We can keep an old ICE vehicle on the road until forbidden the use of major spare parts (it was suggested a few years ago) or when it reaches a certain age, perhaps as young as 12 years old.
We can keep an old ICE vehicle on the road until forbidden the use of major spare parts (it was suggested a few years ago) or when it reaches a certain age, perhaps as young as 12 years old.
We have a common Ford C-max but recently struggled to find a supplier of simple suspension parts.
Not credible is good, the higher they set these targets, doubling or tripling down on the insanity of it all, just makes them look even more stupid (it is possible) as the reality of the 2030 targets gets nearer and nearer.
It seems you can’t mandate against reality, who knew?