The UK’s electric vehicle (EV) sales target could be cut after the government launched a review following pressure from car makers.
Currently, manufacturers must ensure a percentage of the cars they sell each year are zero emissions, with the target rising each year to reach 80% by 2030.
The government has now said it is considering cutting that figure to as far as 50% of all sales by the end of the decade, which it will consult on until late October.
Environmental groups have argued that watering down the target undermines the UK’s long-term climate goals.
Under the current policy, known as the ZEV mandate, the percentage of new car sales that need to be EVs increases each year, from 33% for 2026 until it reaches 80% by 2030. It started at 22% in 2024.
An outright ban on selling purely petrol or diesel cars past 2030 will stay in place, something that Labour promised in its election manifesto.
However the changes now being consulted on could allow car makers to sell more hybrid vehicles as a proportion of the UK’s overall sales.
That means if the government drops pure electric sales targets to 50%, the other 50% would need to be hybrid.
Another option would be keeping the target at 80% but with flexibility for car makers extending as far as 2034.
A longer term deadline for phasing out new hybrid sales would also remain in place for 2035.
The policy on EV sales has already changed a lot over the years.
A ban on selling new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030 was first announced by Boris Johnson when he was prime minister, then pushed back to 2035 by his successor Rishi Sunak.
Sunak also introduced more gradual targets for EV sales under the ZEV mandate.
Labour has previously accused previous Conservative governments of “moving goalposts on phase out dates”.
It comes after motor industry figures urged ministers to ease the targets, arguing that demand for electric vehicles isn’t yet high enough, and meeting them is costing manufacturers too much money.
That is despite electric cars making up a quarter of total sales in the UK over the first seven months of the year, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).
The Climate Change Committee, which advises the government, has said switching from diesel and petrol engines to EVs will be the most effective way of cutting carbon emissions over the next decade.
Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander said on Friday: “It’s right we keep targets under review to ensure they’re practical and back British industry.
“The end goal hasn’t changed – but we need to take business with us on the journey, and that’s exactly what we’re doing today, by making sure industry has the chance to shape how we get there.”
Lisa Brankin, managing director of Ford of Britain, welcomed the government’s “willingness to listen” to car makers, adding: “It is vital to give the industry and customers the certainty that we need.”
Mike Hawes, boss of the SMMT, the primary car industry lobby group, added that the ZEV mandate was “conceived under vastly different conditions”.
He called the review “a timely opportunity to adjust the transition so it works for all”.
Electric car advocates and climate groups criticised the move.
Tanya Sinclair, the boss of industry group Electric Vehicles UK, criticised the government for “asking whether we should extend the availability of polluting vehicles amid our hottest summer on record.”
The Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, a thinktank, calculated that cutting the EV sales target to 50% would mean 2.6 million fewer electric cars on the roads by 2035.
Gurjeet Grewal, chief of Octopus Electric Vehicles, added that weakening the mandate “would send exactly the wrong signal, just as EVs are becoming some of the best-value cars on the road”.
The rapid rise in petrol prices caused by the Iran war has also caused interest in electric cars to spike around the world as a consumer spending measure.
The Green Alliance said watering down targets would “lock in avoidable emissions while undermining the certainty manufacturers need to invest”.
