SMMT Wants More Subsidies For EVs
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
The UK car industry has pleaded with the chancellor to help get the transition to electric vehicles (EVs) back on track when he delivers his budget next week, accusing the government of creating an own goal.
The Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said it was clear that the decision to delay the ban on the sale of new cars powered by petrol and diesel to 2035, announced by Rishi Sunak in September last year, had backfired.
The industry had been targeting a 2030 deadline before the government’s U-turn, on cost grounds, and warned at the time that the move would damage investment and prove a backwards step in efforts to combat climate change.
The SMMT said on Friday that while the UK electric vehicle market remained the second-largest in Europe by volume, sales were lagging levels that had been expected before the government’s delay.
It reported that private EV uptake was 19% down year on year in 2023 after the end of consumer incentives.
A survey for the body showed that almost half of would-be EV buyers now planned to wait until after 2030 to switch – compared with one in 10 last year.
The up-front cost was the main barrier, the SMMT said.
What is the point of the SMMT? It clearly does not represent the interests of motor manufacturers or drivers. Instead it continually obsesses about Net Zero.
EVs are already heavily subsidised. The fact EV drivers don’t have to pay fuel duty already hands than a subsidy of £1000 or so. Other subsidies to business and fleet buyers cost taxpayers billions more. Why then should taxpayers fork out yet more?
It must surely be clear to a blind man that drivers simply don’t want useless electric cars. And the idea that delaying the ban until 2035 has discouraged people from buying them now shows just how out of touch with the real world the SMMT is.
It is time the SMMT woke up to the reality of the harm being done by EV mandates and ICE bans, and started campaigning for the right of drivers to buy the cars they want.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Every government proposal to meet Net Zero needs a taxpayer subsidy. The market says people prefer better technology, i.e. technology that does not need to be subsidised, not worse technology. If only politicians knew how the market works and listened to the people.
Huh, do the “People” really know what they want? THe grief , self inflicted, by them in the way they use their “ordinary ” cars with all this future tech -no-good-for-anything stuff ( DEF & Catalysts & ECU’s-needing updates forever) nonsense leaves a lot to be desired (not) Personally many of us prefer a better QUALITY of basic manufacturing and keep the costs down. Let the BUYER/End-user determine the market, and not allow the Dealers to push saleable nonsense onto us. I am fed up with the incessant Bigger & Bigger tractor or Combine I am expected to buy each year. “You guys” go on about size of Car Parking spaces…. I have to contend with the LAW in moving larger & larger machines ‘Made in the USA’ to give you an idea of the scale of the problem … But UK is NOT like parts of Prairie N America or Steppe Land of the EU . ….
I still don’t see the Gov. Departments here all running around with 100% EVs when so many are available – from Excavators to HGV’s and all between. Jings, could see the Bobby the Postie and the local nurse now on a E-Bike …. silently slips like the Trojan Bus .. Leave it with you!
Meanwhile, back in the real world…
https://joannenova.com.au/2024/03/the-phase-change-is-upon-us-suddenly-everyone-is-backing-away-from-evs/
“After ten years, Apple abandons the fantasy of EV’s
Apple is believed to have spent “billions” since 2014, trying to develop an EV in the semi secretive “Project Titan”. They reportedly had 2,000 employees working on it, but this week, they dropped it like a hot rock, and, by golly, investors were relieved.
It came as a big surprise. Two years ago Apple was so serious it hired some veterans from Lamborghini. In January Apple was hiring drivers for its autonomous testing fleet. A few weeks ago the project was live but being downgraded to a less autonomous machine and delayed until 2028. But this week, employees are being laid off, and Apple is moving many of the workforce to AI.
Most commentators saw this as a cost cutting exercise due to competition from China, but some are seeing this as a bigger sign:”
Exactly right Phillip. The technology applying to electric cars lags way behind political ambitions, and until it catches up, the buying public will not accept EVs. Unfortunately politicians rarely think things through properly.
The SMMT has become political in its attitude to climate change and sees subsidising EVs as its contribution to the scene. This may be the view of the UK car industry but the economics of subsidies have been ignored.
Might be due to having an Tesla-owning idiot in charge.
Moving the deadline from 2030 to 2035 is irrelevant as the steps and timing of the ZEV mandate have not been changed.
Subsidies are required when products that are either too expensive or not able to do the job they are designed to do fail to sell. If you design, build, supply well made products, the reverse happens, they become sought after, people will pay a premium to secure them.
So if we accept this, then why do we accept that over priced replacement mode of personal transport had too be heavily subsidised to “encourage” people to buy it, even to the point where the Government mandates that soon, motor manufacturers will have to split production 80/20 BEV/ICE.
The Government has a closed mindset, given that price, range and recharging/refueling are the principal considerations when purchasing a vehicle, we know that BEV’s carry the burden of a battery pack that has a cost of between £18,000 and £30,000 (no current manufacture will give this detail, but each ICE manufacturer will give the price of its replacement engine/drivetrain, hmmmmm), so unless the battery pack price drops thru the floor, the average saloon will always be £34,000+ against £24,000+ for a ICE; range is more confusing and complicated than the claims made years ago by diesel manufacturers regarding emissions- the claim that BEV do 300 miles per charge is then effected by temperatures, I are radio, heater, wipers, lights switched on, is it city or motorway – these can reduce range by upto 50%, OK, ICE also have range reduction from same but nowhere near the BEV; recharging a BEV, best of luck, refuelling a ICE – anytime, anywhere, the only way the Government can make life difficult for ICE drivers now is too restrict petrol/diesel stations to one or two per city to make it as inconvenient as possible – and with both this current Government and the incoming Labour this idea may just be too damn appealing not to implement.
So having just replaced my 17 plate Octavia diesel for a 24 plate Octavia SE L petrol, I am nicely set for many years happy motoring.
How much subsidy did Apple receive? Microsoft? TV manufacturers?
SMMT have really misread the BEV market, they should have been objecting to the Net Zero rubbish 10 years ago, rather than seeing it as a way to make more money out of the gullible public. They have subscribed to the destruction of the ICE based manufacturing industry. The barrier to new entrants in the motor industry is the cost of developing the power train, engine and gear box and then the mass production of this in a fully tooled up factory. It was foolish to ship the old engine manufacturing plants to the far east, enabling them to get a toe hold in the ICE business.
Now the electric drive power chain is some remarkable motors and electrical control systems, computer controlled, with a heavy, expensive battery using raw materials that are largely controlled by China.
SMMT and most of the motor industry are demanding more subsidies to boost sales of the overpriced, poor performing, unsaleable and in a short time un-chargeable (Electricity local distribution will not support home charging and high speed chargers need a grid connection at least 11,000 Volts 3 phase)
SMMT… the time to cry out was at least 10 years ago when the climate change act was made law. You have the lawyers and economists that should have shouted out “You cannot force the public to accept technology that is more expensive, poor performance and ahead of the development curve.”
Subsidies are for somethings that are necessary but not affordable to most people. In this case I object to having some of my hard earned income taxed and then given away for something that is not necessary.
I’m going to vote later this year,for a party that does not support net zero.
John4b6…..I hope you find the present mayor of London equally objectionable.
Brass neck from the SMMT but who can blame them when subsidies seem to be an absolute entitlement of the Green sector. Is the cost difference between IC and EV traction really £11,000 more or less?
EVs are rubbish. Expensive. Poor and uncertain range especially in winter with lights and heater on, lack of recharging points and slowness if you find one working, resale value as a new battery needed 70/80,000 miles costing more than the car’s worth, tendency to catch fire. And all to reduce CO2 emissions which are essential for plant growth.
We know the rubbish bit. I wondered how the price difference is accounted for.
Battery cars are a low volume product so the unit cost is higher but unlike most things, if volumes increase then so do the costs for some of the materials used – lithium, cobalt, nickel. Currently these metals are much cheaper than they were because battery car production has slumped. Nickel is very low in price as there has been a big find – world’s largest I think – in Indonesia and processing technology can produce top grade metal from any ore. When I worked in petro-chemical pumps which used stainless steel and high nickel alloys we had suppliers quoting a nickel surcharge due to rising prices.
The SMMT is not there to represent drivers – we don’t seem to have a really visible representative group – but the manufacturers and traders, and seem to be failing to do that. Where was their objection to the Net Zero idiocy right at the start? They seem to be no better than the likes of the NFU – No F*cking Use as they are known – in supporting the government in destroying their members.
What is the point? If it’s air purity then whst about giant diesel lorries in their thousands? If it’s CO2 reduction then all they do is export their fumes to the power plants. And what about China and the Keeling Curve? What a waste of resources..Futile futile.
Was it necessary for government to subsidise the changeover from horses and carts to automobiles, or sailing ships ships to steam ships?
No, it clearly wasn’t, so why do the government think that subsidies will convince people to buy EVs, bearing in mind that in the early twentieth century EVs were more common than IC vehicles…
The SMMT has never championed the views of the motorist, or even most of the motor trade. It represents the vehicle makers and, in this instance, the vehicle makers are caught between a rock and a hard place. They are facing the prospect of penalties if they fail to sell sufficient quantities of EVs by 2025, meanwhile the government has pulled the rug out from under them by reducing the subsidies paid to EV purchasers. I have often wondered why the vehicle makers complied so meekly with the future bans on ICE vehicles, when their success over many years in producing more efficient, more economical and less polluting vehicles should have promised even more effective technology in the future. Instead they are throwing away decades of investment to adopt a suspect technology, which creates its own pollution, along with doubtful economic benefits.
SMMT is furious that the government has messed up the auto market, and demands that the government mess it up even more!
“The solution to bad government is more government.”