The UK government’s weakening of vehicle sales rules in April could result in fewer electric cars on British roads and higher carbon emissions, according to its official climate adviser.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) said that loopholes announced by Keir Starmer last month for the government’s zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate could lead to more plug-in hybrids being sold “at the expense of some EV sales, which would lead to a further reduction in emissions savings”.
The UK brought in the ZEV mandate to force carmakers to sell more electric cars every year, or face the prospect of steep fines. However, the Labour government introduced new “flexibilities” into the rules after the car industry lobbied heavily to argue that they were economically unsustainable.
Experts had previously highlighted apparent flaws in the government’s analysis. They told the Guardian they believed the flexibilities would result in much higher sales of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), which emit far more carbon than electric cars because they combine a polluting internal combustion engine with smaller batteries. T&E, a campaign group on transport and environmental issues, said the changes would mean as many as 500,000 additional PHEVs on UK roads by 2030.
Heidi Alexander, the transport minister, claimed the ZEV mandate changes would have a “negligible change to the carbon emissions”. However, the CCC highlighted that Department for Transport analysis assumed carmakers would not use greater flexibilities to sell more PHEVs – an assumption thought to be incorrect by experts. It outlined its analysis in a letter on Wednesday from Piers Forster, the CCC’s interim chair, to Lilian Greenwood, a transport minister.
Ben Nelmes, the chief executive of the thinktank New AutoMotive, said: “The CCC’s verdict is clear: ministerial meddling with electric car rules risks creating damaging uncertainty. Drivers will be the ones picking up the tab, waiting longer to benefit from EV savings, while net zero defeatists cheer from the sidelines.”
Some people in the electric vehicle industry said they were disappointed that the CCC did not call for the government to reconsider the proposed policy changes given the possibility that they would result in higher carbon emissions.
Tim Dexter, the vehicle policy manager for T&E, said: “The CCC’s letter reveals a critical weakness in the government’s revised zero emissions vehicle mandate, jeopardising its climate goals and increasing costs for drivers.”
Colin Walker, the head of transport for the campaign group Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, said: “The increase in vehicle emissions could be considerable. As well as driving the uptake of more polluting and expensive PHEVs, the government’s changes risk distracting the UK’s car industry from making the shift to building EVs, leaving it stuck building obsolete hybrids while the world moves to EVs – a recipe for factory closures and mass redundancies.”
However, the CCC said the government changes were pragmatic and minor relative to the trend of increasing EV sales – to the chagrin of some in industry.
The CCC also criticised the government for failing to ban petrol and diesel van sales by 2030, instead opting for 2035. It said: “We are disappointed that the phase-out date for vans has not also been restored to 2030.”
A spokesperson for the Department for Transport said: “Our recent changes strike a practical balance – giving manufacturers flexibility to sell plug-in hybrids until 2035, while sticking to our commitment to the 2030 phase-out of new petrol and diesel cars.”
The changes “will have a minimal impact on emissions” it said, and would protect jobs.
