Britain Needs “Reality Check” Over Electric Car Targets, Warns Hyundai
Britain’s electric vehicle targets threaten “severe disruption” that could prompt some carmakers to abandon the UK, the European boss of Hyundai has warned. The Telegraph has the story.
Xavier Martinet, President of the carmaker’s European arm, claimed the Government’s zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate no longer made sense and needed to be rethought.
Without change, he said the policy could cause manufacturers to become loss-making and prompt some to stop selling both internal combustion engine (ICE) and electric cars in the UK.
Britain is Hyundai’s biggest market in Europe. UK drivers bought more than 93,000 of the marque’s cars last year.
Under the ZEV mandate, carmakers must ensure 33% of the vehicles they sell are electric or potentially face fines of up to £12,000 per vehicle. The proportion rises gradually to 80% by 2030, when the sale of new petrol and diesel cars will also be banned.
Some flexibilities have been built into the scheme already following concessions by Labour. But to comply with the stretching targets the industry is still having to spend around £11,000 per car on discounts, Martinet said.
Many manufacturers have said they are being forced to subsidise the discounts on EVs with sales from petrol and diesel cars.
Martinet told the Telegraph: “The UK market is in danger of having a severe disruption in the coming years, because if some manufacturers cannot afford or decide not to push the EV mandate, you’ll have an issue.
“And if you don’t sell EVs, you might not do even do the ICE sales. So what will customers buy, at the end of the day? That’s a major question.” …
Mr Martinet’s comments come after Vauxhall owner Stellantis claimed there was no “natural demand” for EVs without subsidies. Manufacturers faced a choice of “pay a fine, or lose money,” a Stellantis executive claimed last month.
Worth reading in full.
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While business should not expect special attention from government (which is why lobbying is so evil) nevertheless they should make the facts clear when government policy collides with realitry.
For too long businesses have pandered to the Net Zero, “sustainability” and DEI ruination. Well done Hyundai.
Well said, and yes the giant billion dollar car companies just went with the Net Bullshit, every ruddy Ad was for a mixed race family happily driving an EV through the Scottish wilderness or across the Gobi desert…. Why did they not raise collective voices?
To be fair, all ads feature mixed race families, not just car ads.
“The UK market is in danger of having a severe disruption in the coming years…”
…Which is exactly what the fruitcake of Marxist loins Edward Samuel Miliband intends. Chauffeur driven-limos for me, shanks pony for thee.
Are they really trying to drive car manufacturing out of Britain? If a company can’t sustain a profit there is no point of being in business.
They’re not trying to. They’re doing it without trying. It comes naturally from following their suicidal ideology.
Profit is totally evil, innit.
A look at Barrie Crampton’s channel on YouTube reveals that EV sales for January 2026 have reduced by 38%, and generally during the last few years the number of EV preregistrations and SORNs plus the use of carbon credits for ICE sales have risen considerably. A similar thing can be found on the “Geoff buys cars” channel, with a lot of use of FoI requests from DVLA to establish accurate information on these numbers.
With sales of EVs falling against rising targets you can see where this is going in short order.
Almost as if the intention is to destroy the domestic car market and industry in UK and Europe and open the door to cheap Chinese crap that can be remote controlled from Beijing by the Communist Party.
So the boss of Hyundai is finally starting to see what communism looks like.
Reality, evidence, truth, reason, logic, are useless against zealots and those who don’t want their minds changed.
What “Britain” needs is to be rid of Edward Willihand and this ghastly Labour Government.
I’m sure the crew currently “governing” our country would be very relaxed about any number of carmakers abandoning the UK market. Firstly, because they don’t see the need for the hoi-polloi to have private vehicles (which only encourages them to leave their neighbourhoods}, and secondly because it frees up the market for their Chinese friends.
And yet larger, older petrol cars face massive hikes in road tax (VED) in april – £760 for a Mondeo V6, accordng to one report I heard.
Perhaps £760 is enough to pay for a ministerial limo for the day.
I can’t believe that they are only just waking up.
Net Zero was always, and obviously, another psyops by the Davos crowd.
Now we’ve got to unbrainwash all the Sheeple.
AND BE RID OF MILIBAND
It always has to be the UK doesn’t it? —–We always have to pretend to save the planet harder and faster than everyone else. We are living in a fantasy world and Miliband is so deluded that he thinks the rest of the world will somehow follow all our economy and Industry destroying politics and force all their citizens into energy poverty as well.
But Miliband isn’t the only brainwashed UN/WEF ass licker, Almost the entire political class all across the UK, EU, Australia, Canada etc etc (Except Trump) are living out this eco socialist fantasy with no regard to the cost or to the damage they are doing.