Government slowing UK’s EV sales would cost British drivers billions – analysis

With the Government launching a review of the UK’s EV sales targets, which includes proposals to weaken them, new analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) has revealed that the most severe proposed change being consulted on – cutting the 2030 target from 80% to 50% – could reduce the number of new EVs arriving on the UK’s roads by 5.8 million. And with EVs capable of delivering significant fuel cost savings over their petrol equivalents, such a dramatic fall in EV uptake could cost UK families £23.6bn cumulatively by 2050 (in 2026 prices). [see methodology notes]
 
Even the least severe of the potential changes under consultation – cutting the 2030 target from 80% to 70% – would mean almost 900,000 fewer EVs being sold, leading to £3.8bn of cumulative extra costs for drivers by 2050 (2026 prices).
 
These costs would come on top of those already incurred by previous changes made to the ZEV Mandate that will have reduced EV sales by an estimated 1.4 million by the time the scheme is due to conclude in 2035, adding £7.3bn of costs (in 2026 prices) out to 2050.  The combined impact of the changes to the mandate that have already been made and the most severe changes being proposed in the Government’s consultation could see 7 million fewer EVs sold, adding £31bn to drivers’ energy costs (2026 prices).

The announcement of this review, which could significant weaken the single most effective policy the UK Government has in place to reduce CO2 emissions and tackle climate change, comes new analysis also released today by ECIU has found that the UK is heading for an even worse harvest than previously thought off the back of a summer of extreme heat. [1]
 
Commenting on the findings Colin Walker, Head of Transport at the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), said: “Proposing to water down the UK’s biggest climate policy the day after temperatures hit 38C, and a summer of heat and drought that risks the UK having its worst ever harvest, may seem strange to the increasing number of people concerned by images of homes on fire, and the security and affordability of the food we eat.
 
“At a time when the PM is on a cost of living tour, with pump prices up due to another war-driven oil and gas crisis, incentivising the industry to slow the sale of EVs will lead to higher costs of living for families across the UK, given electric cars can save hundreds, even thousands, of pounds a year in running costs, and are now no more expensive to buy then a petrol car. 
 
“Government watered down the policy last year, which has already added to the cost of living crisis. Parts of the industry called for flexibilities to meet sales targets, but then haven’t acknowledged how those flexibilities have done exactly what was asked in helping put the industry on track to hit its targets for the third year running.
 
“The first EVs sold under those targets are now turning up on the second hand market, and any slowdown risks choking that off, adding to the cost of living for regular families at a time when there is a surge in demand for used EVs.”
 
Of the 1.4 million fall in EV sales likely to be caused by previous policy decisions, the vast majority (1.2 million) are a result of a decision by the current Government in April 2025 to extend existing flexibilities in the ZEV mandate.  This provided manufacturers with scope to sell more internal combustion engine (ICE) cars and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), despite the fact that PHEVs have been found to consume five times more fuel than their manufacturers claim. [2] This means that their real-world CO2 emissions are little better than a regular petrol car, [3] while analysis by ECIU has found that they cost almost twice as much to run as their manufacturers claim, over £600 a year more to fuel, and 10% more to buy, than an equivalent battery electric vehicle. [4]
 
Having already weakened the ZEV Mandate in 2025, the Government is under pressure from the car industry to weaken it further, and is now consulting on reducing the mandate’s target for EV sales in 2030 from 80% to as little as 50%, which would result in an estimated 2.6 million fewer EVs being sold by 2035.
 
Such a change would significantly steepen the sales trajectory needed to hit the final target of 100% EV sales by 2035. In such a ‘cliff edge’ scenario, it would be likely the industry would call on the Government to extend the mandate’s flexibilities beyond 2029 and to push the final 100% EV sales target back beyond 2035. In a plausible scenario in which flexibilities are extended to 2034 (an option in the current consultation) and the final target of 100% EV sales was pushed back to 2040, then overall EV sales would be reduced by a further 3.2 million by the end of the scheme, resulting in a combined reduction in EV sales of 5.8 million.
 
Combining this plausible worst-case scenario with the effects of policy changes to date means that an estimated 7.2 million fewer EVs could be sold in the UK by 2040 when a revised scheme might end – almost a third fewer than would have been sold had the ZEV Mandate stayed in place as originally envisaged. The impact of these missing EVs will be significantly higher costs for drivers, with the ICE cars and PHEVs sold in their place costing around £31bn (in 2026 prices) more in energy and related taxes from now to 2050, even accounting for the upcoming road pricing for EVs and PHEVs.
 
Colin Walker added: “By incentivising the industry to sell more plug-in hybrids the Government risks another ‘dieselgate’, encouraging the uptake of vehicles that burn five times more fuel, and cost almost twice as much to run, than their manufacturers claim, and cost significantly more to buy, and hundreds of pounds a year more to run, than an electric car. 
 
“While the policy has undoubtedly driven competition in the industry bringing down EV sticker prices for drivers, recent analysis suggest car makers are now discounting petrol cars more than EVs. [5] 
 
“With 80% of cars made in the UK exported and with a surge of EV sales in Europe, by far and away the UK’s largest export market, the real risk our car industry faces is a repeat of the 70s and 80s, when a failure to innovate in the face of competition from abroad resulted in factory closures and mass redundancies.
 
“Let’s call a spade a spade, the ZEV Mandate has very little to do with UK retail sales. The Government needs to think about how it supports UK manufacturers that have been slow to make the transition. These are two separate things. Talk of investment being pulled seems strange given the way the world is going, any new investment would need to be in EVs to be future-proof”. 

ENDS

Notes to editors:
 

1. ECIU: https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/uk-harvest-even-worse-than-previously-thought-new-data 

2. Transport and Environment: https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/plug-in-hybrids-now-emit-five-times-on-average-what-official-tests-claim-eu-data
 
3. Transport and Environment: https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/plug-in-hybrids-pollute-almost-as-much-as-petrol-cars-eu-data
 
4. ECIU: https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/8-of-10-of-the-uks-best-selling-plug-in-hybrids-cost-more-to-buy-than-evs
 
5. Autotrader: https://plc.autotrader.co.uk/media/fogh3n0j/autotrader-monthly-market-intelligence-june-2026.pdf
 
Methodology
 
Total new car sales were assumed to be 2million per year, based on recent averages.  Market share of EVs was calculated for scenarios with progressively weaker versions of the ZEV Mandate, and assumptions about the extent to which flexibilities might be used.  These ‘missed EV sales’ were split between petrol ICE and petrol PHEV (on the assumption that diesel continues to fade out) using a simple linear trend from their current split through to the year in which new ICE sales are 0%.  The number of each type of car sold during the ZEV Mandate and operating at the mid-point of each year out to 2050 was calculated, accounting for scrappage after the typical lifespan of 14years.
 
The price of energy and related taxes in each year was calculated on a pence per mile basis, using Government scenarios of wholesale energy prices i.e. oil and electricity, from Energy and Emissions Projections, Annex M (DESNZ, Feb-2026), coupled with simple models of how wholesale prices translate into retail prices (were petrol retail prices are from Weekly Fuel Prices (DESNZ, accessed Jun-2026); and electricity retail unit rates are from Annex 4 Wholesale Cost Allowance (Ofgem, accessed Jun-2026), as a reasonable proxy for average household unit rates).  The household unit rate was converted into charging prices based on values from ZapMap Price Index (ZapMap, accessed Jun-2026): home night rate x1/3, home day rate x1, public charging x2, rapid charging x3.  Related taxes were assumed to remain at current levels (or proposed levels in the case of road pricing).  Prices were adjusted between nominal prices and real prices using GDP deflators from Energy and Emissions Projections, Annex M (DESNZ, 2025).
 
ICE petrol consumption per mile was estimated based on analysis of recent years’ data for UK-wide data: petrol fossil fuel usage by cars from ECUK Table C8 (DESNZ, Apr-2026); biofuel percentage by mass deduced from ET 3.5 (DENSZ, 2026), converted to percentage by volume using factors for mineral petrol and bioethanol from GHG Conversion Factors 2025 (DESNZ, 2025), and then added to fossil fuel petrol as a volume.  Future energy consumption per mile was based on this current value, but modified for biofuel content according to RTFO targets (DfT, 2025) and forecast improvements in vehicle efficiency from Transport Analysis Guidance (TAG) Table A.1.3.10 (DfT, 2026). EV energy consumption per mile was estimated based on research into real-world consumption (e.g. EV Database, accessed Apr-2025) for popular models sold in recent years, scaled by charger efficiency of c.90%.  Future values used forecast improvements from Transport Analysis Guidance (TAG) Table A.1.3.10 (DfT, 2026). PHEV energy use is split between petrol and electricity, and this split was modelled using findings from the report Smoke screen: the growing PHEV emissions scandal (T&E, Oct-2025), using the actual utility factor (UF), and using the simplifying assumption that the electric and petrol driving efficiencies were the same as for EV and ICE, respectively.
 
Annual mileage of 8,000 miles was used, on the basis that this used to be the typical value from Table NTS0901a (DfT, accessed Apr-2026), and is often still used in analysis by various organisations.

For more information or for interview requests:

George Smeeton, Head of Communications, ECIU, Tel: 07894 571 153, email: george.smeeton@eciu.net