8:20 am, December 12, 2024
International Motors (IM) boss William Brown has called for an ‘environmental tax’ to be introduced on ICE vehicles in order to increase demand for EVs.
The Subaru importer says that the ZEV mandate needs to change and wants to see additional grants introduced to support the growth of electric cars instead.
In an interview with The Independent, Brown added that any money raised by additional taxes on petrol and diesel powered cars should then be reinvested into the UK’s EV infrastructure.
The approach has already been rejected by the SMMT, while Vertu boss Robert Forrester recently said that extra taxes on ICE cars would be ‘totally regressive’.
Despite the criticism, Brown believes that the approach could be the ‘only solution’ and called on the Government to look how other countries, including Norway, have supported EV takeup.
He said: ‘What I’d like them [the Government] to do is incentivise consumers to buy electric vehicles.
‘The Government says they’re going to make the transition easier for the manufacturers, but that doesn’t solve the problem.
‘The problem is we need more demand for electric vehicles and the only way to do that is to help consumers with the buying decision or the purchase of the vehicle.
‘I think there’s evidence from other markets, particularly Norway, that some sort of grant is the easiest to do. And you don’t want to make anything too complicated for the average consumer to understand.
‘The Norwegian case study is fantastic evidence of how to electrify the country and keep everybody on board, and it works for the consumer as well as the industry. Once you get to that kind of level of adoption, the transition to EVs becomes so easy.’
He added: ‘There needs to be changes with the ZEV mandate to the scope of the scheme and the way it works.
‘The targets and the fines are very heavy for the industry to take on, which is why we’re seeing things like redundancies and factory closures. It’s just not sustainable. The government needs to do something.
‘Maybe the only solution is to have some sort of additional environmental tax on ICE vehicles.
‘On the one hand you’re sending a clear message that you can buy an ICE vehicle, but it’s going to cost more money. But with that money you can reinvest it to help fund incentives to get people on the journey to EVs.’
In his role as IM’s UK managing director, Brown is responsible for the import of brands including Subaru, GWM Ora and Isuzu.
He says that the ZEV mandate is making life ‘very difficult’ for the smaller brands in the group’s portfolio and has left bosses ‘scratching their heads’ about what to do next.
Brown added that the current regulations ‘don’t really work’ in their current guise and admitted he does not see tariffs, like those seen in Europe, being introduced in the UK.
‘When you’ve got brands like Subaru and Isuzu, small niche players, looking at what’s going on in the UK and seeing the fines imposed on manufacturers, it just becomes very difficult for them to work out how to plan their business for the future,’ he said.
‘You can see the industry scratching its head and thinking, “where is this all going to go?”
‘I’ve not spoken to many from the government, but the feeling we’re getting is that they’re not going to follow the European tariffs.
‘From a Government position, it’d be difficult for them to impose tariffs when they’ve got this ZEV mandate. Tariffs and ZEV work against each other when the goal is moving towards electrification.
‘You need different players in the market to give customers more choice. Obviously, they want to lower the cost of ownership of EVs, so to take away some competition doesn’t really work with ZEV.
‘That’s where the Government is at, which is why they’ve mooted that they’re not going to go the tariff route.’
