Guardian article from last October on difficulties manufacturers are having meeting targets for EV sales
The point is that the government has set minimum requirements for EV sales, and fines the car companies in proportion to the deficit if they don't achieve them. These requirements are tradable between manufacturers, so they can sort it out collectively. But the problem is that collectively they are having difficulty meeting these rapidly rising targets. Even though there are plenty of EVs to sell, as they are selling even worse in Germany. Though of course there are tariffs on Chinese EV sales, as Europe thinks China is dumping them.
20% of new cars sold in the UK were EVs at the time of that article 5 months ago. And of course, that's what it has to be, given the fines if it isn't. Probably they are taking some lower margins on EVs, or even losses, and higher margins on ICEs, to make that happen. That's what's upsetting them. The prospect of doing that gets harder and harder as EV sale goes up. And the target for 2025 is 28%, and rapidly increasing to 80% by 2030. Something rather extraordinary has to happen in the next two or three of years if that 80% is to be reached, and I expect the manufacturers are probably sh.tting themselves over it.
Because if we are to go from 3% to 75% of cars on the roads being EVs by 2040, then with the residual life in ICE cars, we see that rather few ICE cars can be sold between now and 2040. The average life of cars has risen to around 15-16 years recently, and that will mostly be ICE cars living longer.
The current target to stop fossil fuel cars being sold is 2035. And indeed the present government has talked about reinstating the 2030 date. And if you are selling 80% by 2030, then getting over the final hurdle is probably fairly easy.
Meanwhile the government might be taking what the car manufacturers said last year seriously. At least the specialist press is reporting that the government is considering car loan guarantees to try and help sales, but I don't know to what extent that is hopeful reporting, clearly the govt is not considering serious incentives. If true, that will enable car financiers to offer lower interest rates with default risk reduced. But it's not making it much cheaper.
Clearly there is a virtuous circle that comes about when sufficient EVs are on the roads, but it is hard getting there.
