Big problem for electric cars in the UK
Key Points
- The SMMT says zero emission vehicle sales continue to fall short of ZEV Mandate targets despite billions in manufacturer investment.
- SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes says the industry has absorbed more than £10 billion in EV discounting costs over two years to drive demand.
- The public chargepoint to plug-in vehicle ratio has worsened to one charger for every 24 vehicles, down from one for 20 in 2024.
- An Autotrader survey found just 10% of recent non-electric car buyers considered an EV.
- The SMMT is calling for an urgent review of the ZEV Mandate, saying its underlying assumptions no longer reflect current market conditions.
Sales of zero-emission vehicles in the UK are continuing to fall short of the targets set out in the ZEV Mandate, despite billions of pounds in manufacturer investment, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).
SMMT Chief Executive Mike Hawes warns that the automotive sector remains central to the UK economy and to achieving net zero, supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs and attracting billions in investment.
He added that manufacturers were investing at scale and bringing an unprecedented range of zero-emission models to market, increasingly in the smaller and more affordable segments.
However, Hawes said uptake was not keeping pace with ambition and that zero-emission market share continued to fall short of mandate targets.
Cost and charging concerns cited by buyers
Hawes said consumers and businesses would only switch when conditions and costs were right. He said buyers consistently pointed to familiar reasons to hold off, including cost, uncertainty about infrastructure and whether an electric vehicle would meet their driving needs.
He added that a prospective additional tax, in the form of a pence per mile Vehicle Excise Duty charge, made such wariness natural.
The concerns are reflected in new consumer research. According to an Autotrader survey cited by Hawes, just 10% of recent buyers of non-electric cars even considered an EV.
Industry absorbing discounting costs
Hawes said the gap between uptake and ambition was still being patched over by manufacturer discounting, which he described as unsustainable.
Over the past two years, he said, the industry had absorbed more than £10 billion in costs from EV discounting to artificially drive up demand, which he said was not a model for long-term success.
While chargepoint rollout was improving, Hawes questioned whether it was keeping pace with EV take-up. He said the ratio of public chargepoints to plug-in vehicles had deteriorated to one charger for every 24 vehicles last year, compared with one for every 20 in 2024.
He said the ratio had worsened in every region except London and the South West, and that distribution remained heavily uneven, with London far better served than any other region in the country.
Hawes said the deterioration came on top of wider pressures on EV uptake, including rising energy costs, global uncertainty, and weaker consumer confidence.
Hawes said the assumptions underpinning the ZEV Mandate no longer hold, arguing it had been designed for a market with stronger demand, greater stability, and cheaper energy than exists today. He called an urgent review of the mandate essential, saying it was not about weakening ambition but about restoring credibility, and that regulation must reflect real-world conditions.
He said the potential prize remained significant, including securing global leadership, unlocking investment, sustaining high-value jobs, and decarbonising road transport. Success, he said, required a realistic pathway in which policy, provision, infrastructure, and demand moved in step.
