UK electric car goals unachievable without purchase incentives

Calls for the return of electric car sales incentives have come from across the industry this week, yet the most important voice of all remains silent.

The government has mandated that 22% of new car sales must be electric in 2024 - but it's doing precious little to support this aim.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, the boss of Britain’s biggest car seller and even the House of Lords have called for incentives to spur demand for EVs within a private market that as a whole dropped 16% year on year in January.

Measures suggested have included a cut in VAT on the purchase of new EVs from 20% to 10% and a targeted return of the Plug-in Car Grant towards smaller and cheaper EVs; as well as other potential support, such as cutting the VAT rate on public charging from 20% to 5% and an extension of the EV-favouring benefit-in-kind tax rates.

Incentives for EVs made for the dominant topic in our Autocar Business Live webinar this week, which you can watch now on demand here.

Stellantis’s UK sales boss Eurig Druce said that such speculation on a return of incentives and the silence that meets it breeds uncertainty, as potential buyers risk delaying their purchase in the hope of getting some imminent assistance from the government. (Although when is there every certainty around the new car market these days?)

Druce said the government’s strategy around EVs isn't a 360deg one, compelling supply of EVs but not demand.

This means there are two ways of achieving it: cutting supply of ICE cars to artificially boost the sale of EVs or by selling your way to success. Clearly the latter is the desirable outcome, but it’s much harder to do.

One of the people on the frontline of selling cars is Vertu Motors CEO Robert Forrester – someone who doesn’t pull punches.

He told Autocar Business Live that without incentives there's no chance of the ZEV mandate succeeding in 2024, let alone EV sales growing to 80% by 2030.

He can’t fathom why the UK's target is so far ahead of the EU's in what is an ultimately integrated industry.

His view is that the government will see that the policy isn't working and in time row back on it and in the meantime doesn't have the capital or the willpower to support the policy financially.

Mark Tisshaw

Title: Editor

Mark is a journalist with more than a decade of top-level experience in the automotive industry. He first joined Autocar in 2009, having previously worked in local newspapers. He has held several roles at Autocar, including news editor, deputy editor, digital editor and his current position of editor, one he has held since 2017.

From this position he oversees all of Autocar’s content across the print magazine, autocar.co.uk website, social media, video, and podcast channels, as well as our recent launch, Autocar Business. Mark regularly interviews the very top global executives in the automotive industry, telling their stories and holding them to account, meeting them at shows and events around the world.

Mark is a Car of the Year juror, a prestigious annual award that Autocar is one of the main sponsors of. He has made media appearances on the likes of the BBC, and contributed to titles including What Car?, Move Electric and Pistonheads, and has written a column for The Sun.