More than half of all new UK cars to be electric by 2028 in bid to ditch petrol and diesel
Sheer madness!
MORE than half of all UK cars should be electric by 2028, according to the Government, as it looks to solidify plans for a Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate.
Grant Shapps is looking to set legally binding targets to speed up the shift away from petrol and diesel, and towards the mass adoption of electric vehicles. In its new report, the Department for Transport proposed legally binding annual targets that car manufacturers will be forced to meet before 2035.
In less than eight years, the Government will ban the sales of new petrol and diesel vehicles in the UK.
Just five years later, a similar ban will be introduced to restrict sales of hybrid vehicles.
The proposed scheme would start in 2024, when manufacturers would have to sell all-electric cars, which account for 22 percent of their total sales.
The Government document added: “There is a level of uncertainty based on the form of wider policy measures and future demand, but this modelling assumes that by 2030 a minimum of 80 percent of all new UK car sales are zero emission.
“It assumes a 22 percent mandate in 2024 and 52 percent in 2028.
“Alongside ZEV uptake, it also assumes further efficiency improvements to non ZEVs.”
In 2030, the European Union expects approximately 46 percent of all new car sales to be ZEV across the EU.
The document stated that the UK is a leading ZEV market in Europe, so would expect to be above this average value.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said that new rules “must encourage consumers to purchase, not just compel manufacturers to produce”.
SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes said: “The danger is that consumers will lack the incentive to purchase these new vehicles in the quantities needed, keeping their older, more polluting vehicles for even longer thereby undermining the carbon savings this regulation seeks to deliver.”
If this is not an admission that for most drivers EVs are absolutely useless, I don’t know what is!
It also raises the question of how these quotas will be enforced. After all, car manufacturers cannot force people to buy EVs. And we already know that huge discounts don’t make any difference, because the government has already tried them.
I have read rumours that manufacturers will be fined if they don’t hit the targets, which simply means that these will be added to the price of conventional cars, to the detriment of drivers. If that is the case, people will simply tend to buy imported cars instead, who presumably won’t be affected by the quota.
This whole business is an example of how we are all gradually losing our freedom of choice.
