ZEV Mandate TWEAKS offer some relief for car makes from Aston Martin to Toyota

The UK government announces tweaks to the ZEV Mandate allowing Hybrids to stay until 2035 and additional relief for low volume makers.

The ZEV Mandate is a bonkers way to drive a successful car-making industry in the UK into the red, driving an agenda that will remove ICE cars and replace them with heavy and expensive EVs, out of the reach of many normal buyers, damaging roads by carrying around huge batteries and gobbling up electricity which will always have a notable carbon footprint despite the fantasy that ‘renewable’ energy will eliminate that.

Back in December, the government announced a ‘consultation’ with the car industry on the ZEV mandate which has now, in the wake of Trump’s 25% import tariff for cars, elicited a bit of action and a tweak or three to the mandate.

Instead of banning Hybrid sales from 2030, that ban will now not take effect until 2035 – helping Hybrid specialists like Toyota – with the government citing the Toyota Prius and Nissan e-Power models as examples which will benefit. Although the Prius in the UK is a PHEV and the Nissan e-Power a range-extender. Still, what do they know about cars?

The revisions also included an exemption for ‘small and micro-volume’ car makers so they don’t need to comply with ZEV targets, citing McLaren and Aston Martin as examples which will benefit. Although we thought the ‘small and micro-volume’ limit was less than 2,500 cars per year, yet Aston Martin’s 2024 sales were more than twice that. Still, what do they know about cars?

Other tweaks allow car makers more flexibility on the schemes which allow trade-offs from reduced average CO2 and EV credit transfers, and trade credits between vans and cars.

It’s all tinkering at the edges while Rome burns.