Newslink October Marketing Special

News
Rishi puts new car petrol and
diesel sales ban on ICE
PM pulls a U-turn - but is
anyone listening?
Rishi Sunak performed what one political
commentator described as the ‘mother of all
U-turns’ last month when he announced a
huge shake-up in the UK’s response to
climate change.
At the heart of these changes, as far as
ADIs are concerned, was the news that the
date at which the sale of new petrol and
diesel cars was to stop, had been pushed
back, from 2030 to 2035.
Under the old legislation, only petrolhybrids,
diesel-hybrids and BEV (battery
electric vehicles) would be sold after 2030,
and all sales after 2035 would be fully electric
vehicles only.
The change in policy ends this, pushing
back the last date for ICE sales to 2035. It is
assumed – though it has not yet been
confirmed – that all sales after that date will
still be electric only, and there will not be an
amnesty for a few years on hybrid vehicles.
This is, on the face of it, a major change...
but is it as ground-breaking as some
commentators have suggested?
There are two factors to consider. The first
is that more than one commentator has
described the U-turn as a classic politician’s
‘smoke and mirrors’ stunt, pulled to gain
favour with the Tory grassroots and
anti-climate change groups. It was revealed
on Tuesday, September 26, a week after the
announcement, that No. 10 officials had used
talks with several major car manufacturers to
reiterate that other restrictions on new ICE
car and van sales would remain in place. A
‘zero emissions mandate’ means
manufacturers will face large fines if 22 per
cent of new car sales aren’t electric by 2024,
rising to 52 per cent by 2028 and 80 per cent
by 2030.
So, despite this apparent U-turn,
effectively, four-fifths of all new car sales
must be zero emissions by 2030 anyway,
giving the motoring world little room to sell
petrol or diesel only vehicles, and possibly
creating such a narrow sales window as to
make large scale investments in new ICE
models unviable.
Perhaps that’s why the PM’s news wasn’t
greeted by manufacturers announcing a raft
of new ICE models to go on sale in 2030-35.
Faced with the original UK sales cut-off point
of 2030, and similar deadlines ranging from
2030 to 2035 across the rest of Europe and
much of the Western world, virtually all
manufacturers have already made their
minds up on the direction of travel: they are
committed to electric and hybrids after 2030,
and few, if any, ICE cars will be heading to
market after that date anyway.
Westminster claimed that the U-turn will
allow manufacturers time to keep producing
new petrol and diesels. Certainly a number of
key manufacturers have not officially said
they were stopping all ICE production by
2030 (see panel right). But as a source at the
SMMT said: “No one is interested in turning
back the clock. The manufacturers have set
their stall out on BEVs and hybrids. They see
them as the future of motoring. This policy
U-turn changes nothing.”
However, while that sentiment is shared by
many, one aspect is open to challenge: that it
changes nothing. While in practical terms the
move may mean little on the ground when
the calendar turns over to January 1, 2030, in
reality it sends a worrying signal to the EV
sector. As one person involved in the
charging infrastructure pointed out: “It is
challenging as it is to get councils and
businesses to sign up to install charging
20 NEWSLINK n OCTOBER 2023