Ford boss says it may restrict petrol models in the UK to hit EV targets

By Paul Homewood

h/t idau

I warned this would happen last year:

Ford could limit new petrol models in the UK to increase its share of electric vehicle sales and avoid significant fines on manufacturers from this year.

Martin Sander, general manager at Ford Model e Europe, said the restriction on new petrol car availability by the UK’s second most popular car brand would also be likely to push up prices for buyers.

It comes as car makers face a difficult task in meeting binding EV sale thresholds, which step up from 2024 to the scheduled all-out ban on sales of new petrol and diesel passenger cars in 2035.

The latest UK vehicle sales data published this week show that public demand for EVs has dwindled in recent months, with just one in six electric cars registered in April purchased by private buyers.

Speaking at the Financial Times Future of the Car Summit in London on Tuesday, Mr Sander also said Ford would be pushing back its plans to sell only EVs in Europe by 2030.

He said the target was now ‘irrelevant’ due to electric car sales being ‘below expectations’.

While Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took the decision last year to delay the ban on sales of new combustion-engined cars in the UK from 2030 to 2035, the Government’s Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate has put pressure on manufacturers to up their share of EV sales.

Dubbed by minsters as ‘the world’s most ambitious regulatory framework for the transition to electric vehicles’, the mandate was officially enacted in January.

The law means 22 per cent of each mainstream brand’s car registrations in 2024 must be electric, scaling up to 28 per cent for next year and to 80 per cent by the end of the decade – before rising to 100 per cent from 2035.

Failure to meet the ZEV mandate sales targets can result in huge fines for auto makers of £15,000 per model sold below the required threshold.

After the first four months of 2024, it’s clear that many manufacturers are well behind the 22 per cent requirement for this year.

By the end of April, just 15.7 per cent of all UK registrations were EVs.

Mr Sander told the summit’s panel on Tuesday that Ford’s only option to avoid the fines was to divert sales of petrol cars to other countries.

While a number of car manufacturers have said that the ZEV mandate targets are challenging, Ford is the first to say it could restrict petrol model availability to force its EV sales share higher.

Mr Sander told the audience: ‘We can’t push EVs into the market against demand. We’re not going to pay penalties. We are not going to sell EVs at huge losses just to buy compliance.

‘The only alternative is to take our shipments of [combustion engine] vehicles to the UK down and sell these vehicles somewhere else.’

Last month, Carlos Tavares, chief executive at Stellantis, which is the parent group of Vauxhall, Citroen, Peugeot and other major automotive brands, said the UK’s ZEV mandate could see Stellantis slash the number of cars it sells in Britain, even refusing to rule out halting sales of some models altogether.

But a source close to the company said the more likely option was that sales would be restricted or prices would rise to compensate.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-13396647/Ford-boss-says-car-maker-restrict-availability-petrol-models-UK-order-hit-EV-sales-targets.html

I really cannot work out why so-called motoring experts, such as the prat who wrote this article, did not see this coming a long while ago!

To repeat yet again – NOBODY WANTS THESE USELESS ELECTRIC CARS THAT ARE TOTALLY UNFIT FOR PURPOSE.

The government’s Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate attempts to force motorists to buy something they don’t want.

Meanwhile UK motor manufacturers, such as Ford and Vauxhall, obviously cannot afford to pay the fines demanded, nor sell EVs below cost price.

Their only solution is obvious – cut production of proper cars, in order to increase their ratio of EVs, while also increasing their price. This will have the double effect of improving the EV ratio, whilst raising some additional income with which to pay the fines.

And the poor British car buyer will pay the cost of higher prices and longer delivery times.

Meanwhile the toad, Mike Hawes, really should consider his position, which is to represent UK motor manufacturers and traders, whose interest he most certainly does not represent: