The traffic jam on the road to net zero

It’s never a good idea to force consumers to buy products they do not want, says Dominic Lawson. Yet that is effectively what the Government is doing with the product “most beloved of British consumers”: the car. In its drive to net zero, it now requires carmakers to ensure that an ever-larger chunk of their annual sales consist of electric vehicles (EVs) – 22% this year; 80% by 2030. And they will be fined £15,000 for each non-electric car sold that breaches the limit. The carmakers were fine with this at first: they even scolded Rishi Sunak when he postponed from 2030 to 2035 the date at which all cars sold must be EVs. But now that higher prices, plummeting resale values and range anxiety have depressed sales of all but cheap Chinese EVs, they’ve changed their tune. Stellantis (which owns Vauxhall, Peugeot, Citroën and Fiat) now says the EV quota is “terrible for the UK”, and that the “natural” market share for EVs is half the current threshold; the car leasing giant Hertz is selling off thousands of its Teslas; Tesla is shedding 14,000 workers. Consumers are now on a collision course with government over EVs. And since consumers are also “voters”, it’s likely to be government, even if it’s Labour, that will back down.