The latest August figures for the sales of battery cars in Europe show a big drop of 44%. The market share of battery cars has shrunk to just 14% with a fifth of those who bought one saying they may well switch back to petrol or diesel. The EU, like the U.K. was assuming battery cars would now be approaching a quarter of the market , with complete phase out of new petrol and diesel 2030 to 2035.
As some of us have been warning for years too many of us think battery cars are too dear, their range too limited, their recharging too difficult and their future likely to include new taxes to replace lost fuel duty. The second hand values are often poor causing depreciation problems for those financing peoples purchases. Hire companies report lack of demand with Hertz cutting back on its use of EVs.
The EU and the U.K. need to think again about their manic policy of ending their successful petrol and diesel car industries before there is a dominant market for battery cars and before the U.K./ European industry can make affordable ones to compete with the much cheaper Chinese products.The EU and US have ironically decided to impose heavy tariffs to try to stop people buying affordable Chinese vehicles, whilst the U.K. with its import everything government mentality welcomes cheap Chinese cars in to knock out our home manufacturers.
These latest figures show an urgent need to change policy and stop the attempted demolition of the existing vehicle industry.
September 20, 2024
Just listened to a podcast interview of Liam Halligan by Brendan O’Neil. It is not only Green Energy that demonstrates the economic illiteracy of the Labour Government. It is across the board. The motivation behind some policies can be explained by sheer nasty hate, like levying VAT on private schools, but most of it is just vacuous incompetence.
September 20, 2024
Agreed Peter – Labour policy at present appears to be based on ideology or idiocy. Both equally dangerous.
The current electric car sales debacle shows what happens when Government imposes stupid rules on the population. I for one will be buying a used ICE car in the late 2020s and running it for as many years as I can.
September 20, 2024
Asking government, EU or UK to switch its policy on EVs and Nett Zero in general to a more science, engineering, and market led approach, is akin to demanding the Pope deny the tenets of his Christianity.
The answer, for our government in particular, is to allow their insane choices to lead to implosion. Put simply, there is a time limit to how long they continue to piss off the electorate, and I would be surprised if it is the five year norm. The EU might decide faster. Yes they have their share of zealots but the UK seems to have cornered the market in its current government.
I hope the switch to sanity does not involve civil unrest. Civil disobedience, or the electorate largely going on strike Is something I do not rule out. Constraining the lifeblood of an out of control government, its tax income, is an acceptable way of returning it to a common sense set of policies. I hope sanity prevails before such action is seen as a choice.
September 20, 2024
Succintly put. To which I might add the ‘push’ to smart meters, which appears to be the planned ‘method of control’ needed to manage household electricity consumption owing to intermittency of supply from renewables. The tariff can be varied throughout the day to discourage or encourage use. So get used to having breakfast before 5.00am (it seems quite a few here already do!) and doing your washing after 11.00pm.
Population Control – this is the subtext to this governments actions. But not for the Party Apparatchiks of course….
September 20, 2024
Good morning
State Central Planning has repeatedly been shown to not work. But the arrogance of those in power, especially the Left, never seem to learn.
We do not have a British owned car manufacturer, Sir John, just a lot of foreign owned ones.
But don’t worry, I am sure the government will find more ways to waste our money.
September 20, 2024
Sir John – it mustn’t be forgotten that the market wasn’t created by need, it was created by 5he taxpayer funding those with money to have a new toy. The rich sponging of the poorer taxpayer. Once a volume was reached and the giveaway reduced so did the market.
As I said it wasn’t out of a need for a battery car, it was because someone else funded a life style
September 20, 2024
An insightful article from our esteemed host but I would like to have seen some analysis about the political and ideological infection of major private sector industries by the political centre (Socialist planning parasitism), why and WHO exactly is responsible.
When private companies are filtering their investment decisions though the prism of a perverted, decadent, warped and destructive political ideology rather than through the prism of investment analysis then it truly is game over for the free-market and our economy. Investments that are politically driven are not investments but Socialism in all but name and always leads to bankruptcy as we can now see at VW who are about to release 30k employees.
Bureaucrats and their political partners are morons. They should stick to organising bin delivery times and the recruitment of nurses to wipe patients backsides rather than telling VW how to build vehicles and what type of vehicles they should build.
The three maim parties and yes John, your party, are directly responsible for these forces being unleashed pandering all the while to international influence and persuaded by domestic voices of warped minds.
Reply This is an independent not a Conservative site
September 20, 2024
Shortly after the battery collapses, electric cars grind to a halt: unless they are towed by power leads.
September 20, 2024
Demolition is the desired effect I fear and not just of the car industry.
I have tried to find reasons to assuage my deep concern that this ancient nation and its people have not been marked for demolition, but everywhere I turn I see little to comfort me.
September 20, 2024
The “manic policy”, as you accurately describe it, of the government ending the production of ICE vehicles has probably already sealed the fate of the industry as we know it. The utter stupidity of the UK political class is beyond belief.
September 20, 2024
+1
September 20, 2024
The Establishment, here and across the EU, are learning the painful lesson that they can make manufacturers develop EVs, but they cannot make people buy them.
They are too expensive and too impractical for the vast majority, who do not have a garage/driveway/home-charging facilities. In every way, they are inferior to petrol-driven vehicles.
The Establishment’s supposedly “Unstoppable force” is coming up against the Consumer’s “Immovable Rock.” The difference is that the Establishment could change policy; whereas consumers who cannot afford/charge/ operate with an EV simply won’t buy one.
“NO” is a powerful word. If consumers continue to say “NO” the European car manufacturers will go to the wall. And, whilst the likes of Miliband may delight in closing down Nissan in Sunderland (although with Reform coming second there in the GE, they may think twice), I’m not sure the Germans will want to sacrifice VW, Audi, BMW and Mercedes on the altar of Net Zero.
September 20, 2024
All of the Tory leadership candidates support Net Zero, the overarching enabling framework for the destruction of the car industry. So they won’t advocate a change in policy and Labour will continue on the present path. To paraphrase Peter Mandelson, ministers and shadow ministers are intensely relaxed about the devastation being wrought.