Kemi Badenoch raises job loss concerns over net zero car ban
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
Kemi Badenoch, the Business Secretary, is pushing Cabinet colleagues to water down net zero rules on electric cars that come into force in January.
Car manufacturers are warning they will not be able to hit a requirement that 22 per cent of new vehicles they sell in 2024 must be zero emission models that are completely electric.
A manufacturer will be fined £15,000 for every polluting car sold over the limit, unless they can somehow buy in extra allowances from another company.
Mrs Badenoch is understood to be concerned about the requirement, known as the zero emissions vehicle (Zev) mandate.
A spokesman for Mrs Badenoch said: “If major car companies employing thousands of people are saying that there’s a problem, then it’s her job to look at ways to ease that problem.”
Net zero has become a central issue for both the Conservatives and Labour, with Rishi Sunak under mounting pressure to delay the 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles.
Last week, The Telegraph revealed that Honda and Toyota were publicly urging a softening of the rules amid fears that they would be breached if implemented as planned.
Mrs Badenoch’s spokesman was also quoted saying “Honda and Toyota are not the only manufacturers who have raised concerns” and “Kemi has been raising their concerns with colleagues in the Cabinet”.
The accuracy of the remarks, first reported by the Politico website, was not disputed by the Business Department.
The Telegraph understands that government ministers are looking at new “flexibilities” to help with the crunch, but are committed to the introduction of the quota.
Despite the rules coming into force in just five months, the Transport Department has still not revealed its full approach of how it will oversee the scheme.
Zev mandate
The Zev mandate is part of a wider set of rules to phase out petrol and gas cars and help hit the Government’s legal target of making the UK a net zero carbon emitter by 2050.
The UK ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars is due in 2030, five years earlier than the European Union. Mr Sunak has recommitted to the date despite pressure from his own party, with more than 40 Tory MPs and peers last week writing to the Prime Minister calling for the deadline to be pushed back.
New hybrid cars, which run partly on fuel and partly on electricity, can be sold until 2035, though the exact way they are phased out between those dates is to be determined.
Only the sale of new models is not allowed after those dates. Second-hand petrol and diesel cars can still be sold.
The Zev mandate sees a percentage figure set for each year for what proportion of a car manufacturer’s new UK sales must be zero emission models.
The figure required is due to start at 22 per cent in 2024 and then increase to 80 per cent in 2030. A source close to policy discussions has insisted those figures will not change.
But there is open debate between officials and ministers about a variety of proposals for easing the impact of the rules.
Many involve the complicated system of emissions allowances. Others look at the speed at which the requirement level rises between 2024 and 2030.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/08/01/kemi-badenoch-raises-job-loss-concern-over-net-zero-car-ban/
As I have commented before, how are car makers expected to sell EVs that nobody wants to buy? They cannot afford to slash prices, as they are already losing money; in any event even the £5000 govt subsidy that used to be on offer made little difference to sales.
The real worry is that they opt for selling fewer petrol cars, to keep the EV ratio up. The consequence will be that car buyers simply buy foreign imports instead.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
If someone wanted to destroy the UK economy, it’s hard to think of a better way to do it. Idiots!
At last some of the MSM are starting to say how stupid the whole idea is .https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/dk-hero-no2ulez-1.jpg?strip=all&w=1360&h=579&crop=1
Only got the headline picture in my link above .
But the story is that EVs will never work as , along with lots of other facts , there is not enough generation to charge them up .
Frankly it’s difficult to think of a more stupid idea in general than fining manufacturers for not selling enough of what the government tells them to sell.
I really cannot understand how anybody could come up with such a moronic idea, nor how they think it could work.
That’s a command society ie Marxism …you will build what the state wants and be happy
Everyone in the auto industry (as I was) should be job hunting to beat the rush in a couple of years
Meaningless guff from a ruling class PRETENDING to have second thoughts about net-zero policies during the run-up to a general election; while intending to double-down on everything insane, immediately afterwards.
To protect the globe from hurricanes I suppose:
In the main, the sheeple have agreed to being part of a propitiatory religious ritual. They do not seem to realize that mutton is the main dish to be offered on the altar to appease the gods.
For Christ’s sake stop using childish pejorative terms like “sheeple” to describe people who have different priorities in their lives compared to us. I suspect many are just as intelligent or more so than many of us.
That will look nice on their tombstones, Mr Guy-Johnson.
“The simple truth is that you can get away with anything, in government. That covers almost all the evils of the time. Once in nobody, apparently, can turn you out. The People, as ever (I spell it ‘Sheeple’), will stand anything.”
R. Anderson, The Musical Times, July 1945.
I note the capital ‘P’ and the capital ‘S.’ That indicates that the coining by Mr. Anderson of the word was not meant by him to be derogatory of any individual, but referred – as it still aptly does – to the group-thinking ways of a Mass Society. I shall use the capital ‘S’ in future.
“…will stand anything.”
Whatever the former, generally accepted, priorities.
So Mr. Guy-Johnson, why do we have to do as you say? Where’s the evidence people who believe in obvious nonsense with policies that are at best flat-Earth Economics, are intelligent at all?
“I suspect many are just as intelligent or more so than many of us.”
Speak for yourself, mate.
Whilst it would be unwise to buy an EV, the tax breaks make leasing one financially attractive as a business user. There is though the prospect that lease costs might rise, bearing in mind the lower resale values that they might achieve after the 3 years.
Reading EV forums, that’s already happening – comments about how lease costs have rocketed recently.
Does anyone know who is actually funding these electric car lease companies?
I.e. Who gets burnt when it become clear there is no used market without a vastly cheaper way of replacing the batteries and the perks like no congestion charge, free electricity & salary sacrifice go.
Then I suspect there are people who only have an electric car due to being able to use Salary sacrifice (i.e. pay from income that would have otherwise gone in tax) as they have had to cut back and will jump back to a ICE car (maybe even 1 covered up on the drive) before you can scream “global boiling” as soon as the perks end.
My guess is pension plans especially those engaged in ESG are the ones funding this.
There doesn’t appear to be a ‘might’ about resale values of battery cars being lower. They are also taking much longer to sell.
And much higher interest rate. The prime variable in a lease in interest rate.
A mandate on the sellers but not on the buyers is unfair to say the least. They could possibly avoid penalties by offering fewer new non-electric cars for sale, but that creates other problems – production cuts etc.
I was appalled by the ban on incandescent light bulbs, forcing the use of morr dangerous replacements. Its should not be the government’s business to tell people what they can buy.
The ban on ICE vehicles is uncalled for, unrealistic, badly thought out, damaging and stupid.
I believe that selling some flourescent tubes will be banned from next month, all banned next year.
I decided to replace a flourescent light in a kitchen, it ended up costing £120 for the parts, 2 clusters of 4 lights needed to avoid shadows.
Flourescent lights were great and cheap technology.
And very reliable. I have bought several LED bulbs / light stands etc that have failed, sometimes within days of fitting.
They are also very efficient and low power.
It’s not only the UK. European politicians (all parties) seem to actively hate their own populations and are obsessed with banning things that the market actually needs and wants.
“…hate their own populations…”
All active politicians of the Left and the Centre are (whether they know it or not) Marxist to the core in all their assumptions. The trouble for these over-educated fools is that the mass of Europeans are not Marxist; as the guilt-inducing indoctrination in State-Mandated school curriculums goes straight over the heads of the dimwits – luckily for them!
The wrong sort of working-class! The sort of person that Gordon Brown called in an unguarded moment “a bigot.” That Marx disparagingly called the lackeys at best and the lumpen proletariat when he was dreaming of their mass murder.
WHY do illegal immigrants flood in across the beaches in Kent?
Because the Establishment WANTS them to come, as a symbolic punishment for all the wicked people who failed to “raise their consciousness” in the desired way.
You have always been able to buy incandescent light bulbs, you just had to call them “Rough Service”!!!
https://www.lightshopdirect.com/100w-incandescent-gls-bulb-clear-bc-b22/?aditem=8154&gad=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw_aemBhBLEiwAT98FMqp3Z6-EWndz8i1VeHinxOUT1uVzlmGkd4eOz00875SYIUryyTSh-BoCgp8QAvD_BwE
I was not aware of that. I know some companies were selling them as “heat globes” after the ban but got shut down pretty quick.
The down side is that they are even less efficient than ordinary lamps! To make them more resistant to knocks and bumps they run at a lower filament temperature. To be honest, the last time I saw anyone using them (several years ago) was in my local garage MOT bay. But these days the mechanics all use rechargeable LED torches…
Presumably the Government plan is that car manufacturers add the £15k to each ICE vehicle making them almost as expensive as a BEV.
Make that £20K? “Electric cars will cost more to make, BMW warns”
Usual scaremongering about “polluting cars”. However did we all survive before the “green”, “net zero” and “climate” hysterics started?
The deadline doesn’t need “pushing back”. The ban should not happen in the first place.
>>Tory MPs and peers last week writing to the Prime Minister calling for the deadline to be pushed back.
It’s not only the price of electric cars. It is the fact they are nowhere near as practical as ICE (range and recharging time) which is why people don’t want them.
Don’t forget about the spontaneous combustion and the almost inextinguishable fires as a petrol fire can at least be put out with a fire extinguisher and they don’t restart themselves after a few day. Then we have the inevitable raise in the cost of insurance due to how easily they can get written off in an minor accident due to how little we know about the batteries.
And the increased insurance costs will be paid by all motorists, not just the gullible, virtue signalling morons who buy EVs
Do many people actually buy EVs vs Lease?
Not all of the people driving EVs are virtue signalling
many only have them due the (unbelievable) incentives being too good to refuses especially with the cost of living crisis if you can cover car lease payments with Salary sacrifice (i.e. pay from income that would have otherwise gone in tax) but they will jump back into to a ICE car (they are probably in a multicar household) before you can scream “global boiling” as soon as the perks end or issues like the spontaneous combustion become too much of problem.
Probably also second cars for their city runabout journeys rather than the only vehicle.
>>many only have them due the (unbelievable) incentives being too good to refuse
Taking a company car, with a little green flash on the numberplate, that has been built with both child and adult slave labour because you can pay less income tax strikes me as both virtue signalling and immoral
The unjustifiable tax on company cars, i.e. necessary tool to be able to do your job, is a thread all on its own. It is akin to paying tax on your desk and chair if you work in an office.
It is disgraceful that EVs are treated differently from proper cars.
>>Taking a company car,
When company cars were a real tool of the trade for e.g. sales people your point was a valid one
But when they started being doled out to all and sundry to get round the Labour government wage controls the HMRC got interested. And here we are today with their crazy benefit in kind rules.
HMRC is also another thread all on its own. Look at the disgraceful attacks on the self-employed and even limited companies.
>>HMRC got interested.
👍 😡
So the car manufacturers need to make some Sinclair C5 clones: the lowest possible “EV car” that satisfies the stupid rule. Bundle it with the real car, and add in the cost. Then throw it in landfill upon sale.
Perhaps that’s why all the Chinese imports, priced like golf carts.
Between 2030 and 2035 a UK manufacturer can legally sell a new ICE for £1 to somebody in the EU, but before it is delivered, they decide they don’t want it and sell it back to the manufacturer for, say, £100. The manufacturer then sells it SECOND-HAND to a buyer in the UK, to whom it is legally delivered.
Thinking the same. A glorious opportunity for some creativity in the second hand car market. The Japanese are well placed for ‘used’ imports as they are RHD.
Why not just sell a new car to a UK buyer for them to pick up somewhere in Europe and bring back as a personal import?
Aiui the mandate applies to car sales within the UK, not personal imports.
Takes me back to the days of buying UK-spec cars in Belgium and saving £££s!
Of course there may well be problems getting a spec that is UK-compatible as the manufacturers will no longer be making them – would probably have to be a car that’s made in Europe for a RHD market, if such a thing exists!
The problem is that UK cars are right-hand drive which makes them easy to distinguish and even “personal imports” will attract a lot of scrutiny.
>>Why not just sell a new car to a UK buyer for them to pick up somewhere in Europe and bring back as a personal import?
Time was when a similar ruse operated via the Channel Islands. IIRC it was used to bypass high VAT and car tax on new vehicles. Guaranteed to be low mileage second hand. Probably a bit easier organising the import too.
The new car market will be destroyed. Everything will be secondhand. But does it work for UK and EU residents who buy from outside the EU? That is what will happen if European politicians do not reverse their vindictive and unnecessary bans of ICE vehicles. The market does not want less practical EVs.
>>The manufacturer then sells it SECOND-HAND
No need for any of that. We’ve had pre-registered cars sold by dealers as secondhand with only delivery mileage for decades.
https://news.motors.co.uk/pre-registered-cars-everything-you-need-to-know/
All well and good, but can dealers themselves escape the ridiculous, unnecessary and vindictive ban?
>>No need for any of that. We’ve had pre-registered cars sold by dealers as secondhand
Yes, I know – I bought one like that myself. But I suspect the Government (Treasury) will try to include that shortcut in the ban if it’s initially registered to a UK address.
This must have been one of Gummer’s crazy CCC ideas. How can manufacturers force people to buy their EVs?
Well they are trying really hard. When was the last time you saw an advert for an ICE car? By far the majority of ev’s sold are company cars, because of the tax concessions. The rest are the virtue signallers who are keeping up appearances. Hyacinth Bucket would be so proud.
Spot on.
For example, in June’s sales figures the sales of battery cars to private buyers was just 3.7% of the monthly total.
Mr Sunak should understand that everytime he introduces an easing or elimination of the numerous and ridiculous global warming regulations, such as net zero and the 2030 diesel/petrol car ban, that improve the way of life of the masses, he will be adding to his support from the voters at the next election. The GW fanatics are beginning to realise that they cannot scare the public any longer with their end-of-the-world scenarios.
Scrap the crap over Net Zero et alia and the Conservatives will easily win the next election. I genuinely think it is that simple.
Is Kemi Badenoch the only sensible person in government? I can’t think of any others. But the shadow government is even worse.
I wonder how long it will take for our mathematically challenged politicians to understand that the only way car manufacturers will be able to meet this requirement and avoid fines will be to cut their total car production so that the small number of EVs that they can persuade the public to buy will become 22% of their diminished total production. This will likely cause the shutdown of British car manufacture – still, if it’s saving the planet who cares?
So no change in the fact that the creation of ‘green’ jobs destroys real tax generating jobs at a far greater rate.
Expect some really generous discounts on EVs from 2024 onwards.
Isn’t it more likely that the £15K fine will be added to each ice car?
After all they work far better than evs.
And I presume the Chinese ev suppliers, who do not manufacture ices, will not be affected by this fine on ices and hence only be paying a 10% import duty?
Go to Warwick and see just how many EVs of a certain manufacturer there are. All driven by the senior management of said company who buy them for peanuts. Makes up the company’s quotas.
The Welsh Government, I use the term loosely, has come up with a whizzo idea to make EV’s and ICEs go further on one charge or a full tank, from 17th September ALL residential roads will have a speed limit of 20mph and to enforce it they will enlist firefighters to help the police.
Wales has a Labour led central Government so we can see what we might expect from Starmer and Co.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/01/wales-labour-firefighters-roadside-lessons-20mph-limit/
I wonder what that will do to the tourist industry? Who wants to drive to Wales and risk speeding fines when driving through towns and villages?
Looks like I’ve got about 6 weeks left to visit the “Internal Fire Museum of Power” (lots of old internal combustion engines) then…
At 20mph fuel consumption of an ICE is much higher. You have to keep to second gear to provide enough engine braking.
I always though the Americans had it right. Speed limits are normally 25/35/45/55 (plus the odd 65/70 iirc). I always found my Dads automatic chevvy would coast along at 25 very nicely when needed. Since a lot of cars here are automatics now, 25mph would have been a much better choice of a low speed limit.
“…Americans…Speed limits…”
I was driving there shortly after President Carter forced through the 55 m.p.h. limit. At 8 in the morning, every car on the open road was doing 52; at 2 in the afternoon 58; at 6 in the evening 65; at night…not a good time to be jousting with the natives!
It is the same everywhere in the World. People obey the rules in and around cities but not on rural back roads.
Mississippi allows 80 on toll roads but none exist! A few States have minimum speeds. In South Dakota, they like you to really move along on rural freeways: 75-80 with a minimum of 40.
You need to be careful in some places in Europe. The blue signs for minimum speed limits are actually being used as maximum speed limit (red) signs on some roads and there are cameras.
>>A few States have minimum speeds
“…need to be careful…”
A talking GPS system helps.
Correct, add up. As I recall, optimum gas mileage is achieved around 45 mph. That’s the point where wind resistance overcomes mechanical advantage of higher speed.
Depends a lot on the engine, Gamecock.
My BMW 3 litre turbo diesel estate had (like all BMWs) a MPG gauge and was at its best (37 MPG) at 84 MPH n the motorway.
My best petrol BMW cruising at illegal velocities with the throttle backed right off the (analogue) gauge sat hard on the end at 50 MPG, nice motor that, very drivable!
My 3.5 litre chipped Alpina on the other hand…
My current 3 litre turbo diesel Merc can exceed 40 MPG (my wife can get 43 out of it) on occasion, but having to slow below 60ish definitely makes it thirstier.
At 20 MPG I doubt it would get into double figures!
Maybe not, Mr Weazle. Many mpg gauges are simply vacuum gauges. They do not integrate fuel consumption and speed.
I can state for a fact that at 84 mph, wind resistance is destroying your mpg, whatever your gauges say.
Vacuum gauges is what my cars had back in the 1960s and 1970s.
Bosch engine management computers such are fitted to top end BMWs and Mercs do, I think you’ll find.
Meanwhile, Ford US is loosing $65k on every EV sold, AND, their dealers have 90,000 new EVs they can’t sell. 2023 losses projected to be $4.5 billion.
Toyota announced last year that they aren’t going to play the EV game.
Ford is going to have to do something. The loss is not sustainable.
The financial impact on the dealer network has to be catastrophic, too.
Just heard a radio ad for an “all-electric SUV” from Toyota (it had some alphabet-soup name like BRZGT)…seems they’ve had a change of heart.
Yes, it would seem so.
This may explain it. In fact, Toyoda may have been forced out for refusal to embrace electrics. I expect time to tell that he was right.
“Toyota CEO and President Akio Toyoda, 66, will step down from his post on April 1, the automaker said today.
He will be replaced as chief executive by current Chief Branding Officer Koji Sato.”
It is quite clear how all of this goes “if” the zealots are not given a good slap and put back in their box.
Their targets are both ruinous and impossible because their activist driven Canutian physics does not exist. Also as I lay out in the next paragraphs this is all just a Trojan Horse. None of their solutions are intended to work, or have a hope in hell of working. Their point is merely to con the uneducated rabble that unicorns and pixy dust are actually real.
So, after hobbling Western economies with all of this crap and seeing the temperature of the planet is not responding to their nonsense (why would it because it is not controlled by CO2), then the zealots prompted by their marxist puppet masters will move onto the next level and then the next and then the next until they have achieved what Pol Pot could only dream about.
When they have impoverished us all, stopped all personal travel, shut down all industry, created starvation and still the climate does not respond to their asininity, then the people will be next being blamed directly. The useful idiots and their masters will demand sacrifices to their climate god which no doubt the useful idiots will help with in a most enthusiastic way. History is full of example of the “enthusiasm” with which the useful idiot class carries out obscenities often without need for direction from their masters.
You think the 100 million murdered by Mao and Stalin in the 20th Century was a lot? They were just amateurs compared to this lot of wannabe Pol Pots if you include global starvation which will be caused if they achieve their aim of strangling oil production. That alone will trigger instantaneous collapse of world food production AND methods of distribution.
Funny do you not think that given we have examples from history of demonstrably bad ideas that today people appear to be trying to repeat?
The most probably cause of the destruction of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations was not just the “Sea People” alone but the associated collapse of the international trading routes that they had become over dependent on for food. Today across the Western Civilized world we have left wing governments and activist groups and their degrothing religion coming up with every excuse in the book to shut down critical home production of food and offshore everything making us completely dependent on external supply without apparent thought for what may occur if those routes are cut. Look what the idiots are doing in the Netherlands and also in the UK with their lunatic “rewilding” nonsense lamely saying we will import all our needs.
You would almost think this is being done deliberately.
It is the oft repeated prosperity-decadence-collapse cycle. We are in late decadence.
“None of their solutions are intended to work, or have a hope in hell of working.”
The decadent destroy that which keeps them alive.
Very well said. Full Marks.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” Santayana
But I think there will be riots before that happens.
I’ve never understood why some smart human rights lawyer has not challenged the government’s right to restrict legitinate trade. Or has the government correctly and legally proscribed new ICE vehicles? How would that be legal?
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” — disputed
One of the main causes of the prosperity-decadence-collapse cycle is the prosperous are disinclined to riot. You have to get deep into collapse before they will risk what they have.
The U.S. banned incandescent light bulbs. Outrageous tyranny! I won’t be doing anything about it.
A few years after I retired, I told my son, “You are going to have to save the world; it’s not my job anymore.”
“It is quite clear how all of this goes “if” the zealots are not given a good slap and put back in their box”
We’re going to need a large box:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12362407/Just-Stop-Oil-caught-boasting-protest-tactics-shaped-Labour-policy-secret-recording-meeting.html
That is a very poor headline from the Telegraph since this is not about the 2030 sales ban but fining companies from next year on failing to meet battery car targets.
I have to ask, are Germany, China, USA and France going to face the same restrictions or as in the past just pay lip-service?
Will they be fining the BMW Ham Hall engine plant? What about manufacturers with no UK base like VW?
“Who wants to drive to Wales” just stop there and you have it in a nutshell!
It really is incredible the situation that has arisen. Just let it sink in – we have allowed a Government to ‘fine’ manufacturers if they sell to the public things that the public want. We no longer live in a free country. In what way can or should Government’s outside a Soviet or Chinese system do that? And let’s wait for the next stage where those of us who own property won’t be allowed to sell it or rent it out unless we meet Government draconian demands for making them ‘net zero’ We need a wholesale revolution against this tyranny. The problem is 95% of the population continue to vote for one of the same three political parties and think things will change!
If we wanted to buy EVs, we would buy them. Since we are not buying them, it’s clear we wouldn’t – and didn’t – vote for the government to force us to buy them. So on what basis is the government forcing us to buy them? We don’t want them, we didn’t vote to be made to buy them, so why is it happening?
“So on what basis is the government forcing us to buy them?”
Emergency. The climate emergency. In an emergency (see Covid), they can order all sorts of things outside of their powers.
Except, the U.S. Supreme Court has said that people don’t lose their rights just because there is an emergency.
Which didn’t stop Lincoln from suspending the right of habeas corpus and locking up thousands of journalist, nor Roosevelt from locking up hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans. And the current DC actions against tourists in the Capitol on Jan 6.
Maybe she should resign, as Chancellor Hunt today confirmed that the ‘ban’ is still going ahead 2030
Perhaps the manufacturers should start closing factories if they cannot sell the products (ICE) that the actual market needs and wants. Perhaps that much unemployment would make politicians see sense or perhaps they just don’t care.
Move your business to South Carolina, while the best sites are still available.
https://www.sccommerce.com/buildings-sites
I’ve just read in the Yorkshire Post that one of the motorway services in Yorkshire is powering their car charging points from a diesel generator because the grid can’t provide enough power.
The shape of things to come…