New car sales data for June - EV sales: comment

“Halfway through the year, and EV sales continue to go from strength to strength. The car industry, as a whole, is on track to comply with its EV sales targets in 2026, just as it did in 2024 and 2025. Together with the general buoyancy of the UK new car market, this all puts claims by parts of the car industry that they are struggling in a different light.

"Just as they have done with solar panels, the British public are now clearly embracing another net zero technology, with electric cars helping them save money during a cost-of-living crisis and insulate themselves against volatile oil and gas prices. By incentivising competition between manufacturers, the ZEV mandate is bringing EV sticker prices down - helping regular families cut their driving bills as new cars sold under the mandate pass on to the second-hand market.
 
"The risk for the government of weakening the mandate is twofold. Firstly, you create another dieselgate situation where manufacturers are incentivised to sell more plug-in hybrids which typically cost more to buy than EVs, and significantly more to run that their manufacturers claim. Secondly, since 75% of cars made in the UK are exported, and the world is clearly only moving in one direction on EVs, there is a risk of a repeat of the mistakes of the 70s and 80s when a failure to modernise in the face of competition from abroad decimated the UK car industry, costing thousands of jobs.

"This time bizarrely it’s the Japanese which are the laggards, with Toyota being one of the few UK manufacturers dragging its feet in making the shift to electrification. The question is are there other ways the government can support such laggards, rather than change the whole mandate which won’t incentivise modernisation and will leave more regular families with much higher driving bills?"