EVs see another month of strong sales in October: comment

“A third consecutive month of more than 20% market share is another nail in the coffin for the notion that EV sales are stalling.

“Market share is now on track to reach 19% for the whole of 2024. Crucially this is higher than the 18.1% target that the industry needs to meet to comply with the previous Government’s ZEV mandate.

“The mandate continues to drive down sticker prices as manufacturers compete to hit sales targets. The ultimate beneficiaries are the UK’s drivers - as costs come down, more and more drivers are accessing the savings that come from electric driving. And in three or so years, these new EVs hit the second-hand market where already they are the quickest selling segment according to Autotrader, demonstrating the demand for EVs from regular families who buy used cars.

“Slowing the transition to EVs is bad for manufacturing as recent analysis has shown, with hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of pounds of economic value at risk if Government and industry don’t manage to sustain a swift shift to electrification”.

The ZEV Mandate’s headline EV sales target for 2024 is 22%, but this is not the target that the car industry needs to hit to be compliant with the regulation. The production of comparatively large numbers of low CO2 emitting petrol and diesel cars generates credits that can be transferred to the ZEV mandate – with the effect of lowering the percentage target that manufacturers have to hit. New Automotive has calculated that this means the sales target that the whole industry needs to hit for 2024 is 18.1%, not 22%. [1]

A recent report by CBI Economics, commissioned by the ECIU, set out the consequences for the UK’s car industry should it go slow in making the transition to manufacturing EVs. [2] The contributions made by the sector to the UK economy could fall by as much as 73%, or £34.1bn, and over 400,000 jobs could be lost should EV production levels stagnate. Government support is critical in avoiding such an outcome, and this includes the provision of a stable and supportive regulatory environment through keeping measures like the ZEV Mandate in place.