Car makers across the UK are rationing sales of petrol and hybrid vehicles to sidestep punitive net zero fines, one of the country’s biggest dealership chains has claimed.
Robert Forrester, chief executive of Vertu Motors, revealed the constraints being self-imposed on car sale forecourts as demands to meet state-imposed climate targets are pushed forward.
The move comes as consumer demand for expensive electric cars continues to wane.
Forrester says this means someone ordering a new car now may not receive it until February next year. He told the Daily Telegraph:
In some franchises there’s a restriction on supply of petrol cars and hybrid cars, which is actually where the demand is. It’s almost as if we can’t supply the cars that people want, but we’ve got plenty of the cars that maybe they don’t want.
They [manufacturers] are trying to avoid the fines. So they’re constraining the ability for us to supply petrol cars in order to try and keep to the government targets.
Forrester pinned the blame for this on the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate, which demands at least 22 percent of all vehicles sold across the UK are electric starting this year.
That percentage will increase every year until it hits 80 percent in 2030.
Cars recharge at a station for electric vehicles (EVs) at Cornwall service station near Saint Austell, on August 14, 2024 in England. The government’s commitment to reducing future Co2 carbon emissions will mean many more motorists will need to switch from petrol and diesel powered cars to EVs. However there are fears the charging network in the UK is not yet fit to deal with the enormous demand more EVs on the road would place on it. (Matt Cardy/Getty Images)
He added: “What the Government’s actually doing is constraining the new car market, which has a big impact on VAT receipts for them, and creates a business environment in the UK where manufacturers may question whether they want to make cars here.
“As Carlos Tavares [chief executive of Stellantis] has said, why should they sell cars at a loss because of UK government policy?
“The new car market is no longer a market, unfortunately. It’s a state-imposed supply chain.”
The problem of slow EV sales is not restricted to the UK market.
As recently as March figures showed sales plunged across Europe in March as EV demand dried up despite the E.U.’s push to ban petrol and diesel vehicles by the middle of the next decade, as Breitbart News reported.
Sales of battery-powered cars dropped by 11.3 percent as demand in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, plunged by 28.9 percent, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA).
Only 13 percent of new registrations were electric, down from 13.9 percent in March last year and down from 14.6 percent for all of 2023, continuing a long-term decline in buyer interest.