Tag Archives: Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV)

ZEV Mandate Cannot Be Enforced With Foreign Manufacturers, Say DfT

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-sets-out-path-to-zero-emission-vehicles-by-2035

The Government’s Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate specifically refers to motor manufacturers – though there seems to be some ambiguity between “sold” and “produced”.

However there is no information provided as to how non-UK manufacturers will treated, and how foreign companies could be forced to meet the mandate under UK law. I there FOId the DfT, and they sent me this response:

So, as I suspected, there is no way the Government can actually enforce its mandate with non-UK manufacturers.

Suppose BMW missed its target by 50,000 cars. At £15000 per car, that’s a penalty of £750 million – which they clearly are not going to pay, no matter how much the Government huffs and puffs.

And if the Government attempted to restrict market access, I suspect there would be an almighty row with the EU. It is one I also suspect the Government would lose in the European courts.

This is particularly relevant given that German manufacturers are hoping to continue focussing on ICEs, now that the EU has an exemption for “zero carbon fuels”.

But also note this section:

It would be easy for European manufacturers to bypass the mandate, simply by pre-registering cars for 3 months before exporting them. By doing so, they would easily undercut domestic manufacturers, who would have to include the cost of the mandate in the price of their ICEs.

It seems naive in the extreme for the Government to just assume that BMW, Renault and all the rest would willingly cave in to UK demands. But that just about sums up the whole lunacy of Net Zero.

Maybe legal beagles out there might check my logic and see if I’ve missed anything.

EV Sales Falter As Private Purchasers Remain Unconvinced

Car registrations across all fuel types grew 14.3% to a five-year high, SMMT says. Automakers initially touted EVs as electric variants of traditional combustion vehicles, which did themselves a disservice. That couldn’t be further from the truth, as EVs are as dissimilar to pure combustion vehicles as propellor aircraft are to jets. 

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

Electric vehicle demand continues to falter and just one in four new battery cars are purchased by private buyers, according to latest industry data.


The number of car registrations across all fuel types grew 14.3 per cent and saw the most motors sold in an October for five years, new Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) data shows.
However, appetite for EVs is dwindling and it means manufacturers are now at real risk of missing costly targets requiring them to increase their zero-emission car sales from January.


The automotive trade body has reacted by calling on the Chancellor to ‘introduce incentives and facilitate infrastructure investment’ in the upcoming Autumn Statement in a bid to boost EV uptake.
A total of 153,529 car registrations in October was 7.2 per cent above pre-pandemic levels and the best performance in the month since 2018.


However, the statistics reveal that EV uptake isn’t accelerating as fast as manufacturers need it to in order to avoid costly penalties levied from 2024.
The data shows that EV uptake did grow for a 42nd consecutive month in October, rising 20.1 per cent year-on-year with 23,943 registrations in total.
Yet, private registrations accounted for fewer than one in four EVs bought, with large fleets fuelling the majority of sales in a stark indication that consumer demand is waning.


The volume of registrations last month means EVs made up only 15.6 per cent of all car sales, which is a long way short of the 22 per cent required of manufacturers from next year when the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate is introduced.
The annually-increasing thresholds of the mandate were rubberstamped in September, just days after the Government confirmed the delay to the ban sales of new petrol and diesel cars by five years from 2030 to 2035 – a move experts say has played a significant part in stalling electric car demand in recent weeks.


Mainstream car makers that fail to meet the ZEV’s increasing sale targets from next year face substantial penalties or will be forced to purchase EV credits from other brands, such as Tesla and Polestar that only sell battery cars.
Fines amount to £15,000 for every car short of the binding targets. For vans, manufacturers will have to pay £9,000 per vehicle next year, before the van payment increases to £18,000 for the rest of the regulation’s timeframe.
Full story

Private buyers account for about 44% of all car sales.

Working back from the SMMT data, private sales of BEVs must have been about 5900 in October, out of a total private registrations of 62915. In other words, BEVs only account for 9% of private sales.

There is only so much appetite for EVs amongst business  and fleet buyers, so the government is going to get nowhere its targets whilst thee private market remains moribund.