8:10 am, April 29, 2023
MPs are adding their voice to rising criticism of the 2030 ban on sales of new cars with petrol and diesel engines.
It follows car industry leaders voicing concerns at our inaugural Car Dealer Live conference last month that the targets aren’t achievable.
There are doubts about sufficient charging infrastructure, and MPs are saying the move to total EV – hybrids are set to be banned in 2035 – is ‘unrealistic’, bearing in mind the cost of the vehicles, the squeeze on household budgets and rising energy costs.
Auto Trader says interest in new EVs has dropped by nearly two-thirds since the beginning of 2022.
Tory MP and transport select committee member Karl McCartney was quoted online in The Times yesterday evening as saying the ban wasn’t ‘realistic’ and that the government ‘shouldn’t force people to do things that really don’t wash’.
He commented: ‘The use of EVs will spread to urban areas but once you get outside the big cities, the situation is very different. There isn’t the infrastructure or the desire.’
The ban was announced in 2020 by then-PM Boris Johnson.
But ex-business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg was quoted in The Times as saying: ‘It’s absolute madness. We are not ready. The petrol engine is an extremely efficient way of providing transport.
‘The charging infrastructure just isn’t there. The cost of electric cars is still very high. The range of electric cars is still not good enough.’
Meanwhile, a report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research queried the benefits of regulation, said The Times.
According to the report, which was commissioned by pro-petrol lobby group Fair Fuel UK, as EVs become more popular and ICE cars become more fuel-efficient there will be ‘significant’ drops in carbon emissions even if there isn’t a ban.
It says the ban will cost every household £14,700.
The government has set a target of 300,000 public chargepoints to be in place by 2030.
At the beginning of this year, there were just over 37,000, which means just 106,000 will be in place by then if the current rate of installation is maintained.
Vertu Motors CEO Robert Forrester has said he doesn’t believe the 2030 target is achievable.
‘The ban on ICE vehicles in the UK in 2030 will have to move back five or 10 years,’ he tweeted. ‘It is a question of when, not if.’
He spoke out days after industry leaders at our conference voiced their concerns.
Paul Hendy, the boss of Hendy Group, said the ban was a ‘train hurtling towards us down the tracks’ and one that would take some force to stop.
‘Quite frankly, the infrastructure won’t be there. It might be in some cities, but I can’t see it. But who is going to be brave enough to stop it?’
Snows Motor Group chief operating officer Neil McCue told the conference he simply ‘can’t see’ the government sticking to its 2030 timescale.
He said: ‘The city where I live, I look at flats and terraced houses – how are people going to charge? Some businesses have chargers, but there’s not enough. I don’t see how it is going to work.
‘We are investing millions in infrastructure in our sites and I just don’t see how it is going to work. We’re a mile away from the government’s target.’
Hugh Bladon, of the Alliance of British Drivers, was quoted in The Times as saying: ‘The infrastructure isn’t there and yet the ban is seven years away.’
Car Quay boss Jamie Caple told Car Dealer Live delegates that he’d been planning to step up his company’s used EV offering before the pandemic but ‘crazy’ changes in the market had forced him to rethink things because of a real ‘uncertainty’ around the used EV market.
‘To see what’s happened is crazy,’ said Caple.
‘I really empathise with new car franchise guys because they’re having to put in all this infrastructure and money and then you’ve got all these cars coming in when there must be a real level of uncertainty about the future of it.’
At least 22 per cent of the cars that manufacturers sell next year will have to be electric or they could be fined up to £15,000 per car they miss their target by, under a new mandate.
The percentage of zero-emission vehicle sales will continue to rise – to 80 per cent in 2030 and all sales in 2035.
