So the UK has a new Labour Government after the not at all unexpected result of the General Election, epitomised by the rather opportunistic picture above posted by Renault on election day.

As new Prime Minister Keir Starmer settles into 10 Downing Street he’ll likely be allowing himself a small celebration before getting down to the work in hand, sorting out his new cabinet and starting to try and deliver on the promises he made to the electorate. And with a need to make an impression quickly and back up the faith so many have shown in his party, matters automotive probably won’t be top of his in-tray.

Well Prime Minister, you can’t leave it too long. There are several issues facing automotive right now, and one really pressing one, that environmental campaigners and on the whole politicians have long pushed hard on, you have made much more urgent – the switch to electric vehicles (EVs).

The take-up of EVs in the UK is at crisis level – it might not seem so, because the new car registration figures released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders each month resolutely point to ‘growing EV market share’, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.

EV market share is growing because the fleet market is adopting EVs, and it is doing so because of the understandable encouragement of significant tax breaks for a company car or van driver running on electric.

The electric turn-off

The consumer buyer, however, who must be attracted to EVs to make happen the transition we’ve been told is the future and the only future, is turning rapidly away from them. June’s registration figures released on the day of the Election showed sales of EVs to private buyers have slid backwards by 16% in 2024 while sales of electric vans have gone backwards by a similar amount – and vans are almost entirely business purchases.

A few years ago the transition to EVs looked to be going full steam ahead, with massive encouragement from the Government. Plug-in car and van grants worth several thousand pounds proved a huge incentive encouraging buyers to make the switch, and manufacturers were rushing to bring out new electric models.

The then Conservative Government responded to this encouraging picture by removing all the carrot and replacing it with a stick. The plug-in car grant was slashed and then in 2022 axed. In place of consumer incentives pressure was put on manufacturers, with an announcement that by 2030, sales of new cars and vans with combustion engines will be banned.

More recently that ambition has been rowed back on, with the ban date being pushed back to 2035 – hold that thought. But at the same time a Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate has been introduced, starting this year and requiring electric cars to form 22% of a manufacturer’s annual sales and vans 10%, with the threat of huge fines (and we mean huge) for manufacturers who miss the target.

That percentage is planned to rise each year, reaching 80% by 2030. But currently actual EV market share shows no sign of meeting these targets – in cars it’s stalled at around 16%, and in vans it’s going backwards, down to 4.7%, less than half of what the Government expects in just six months’ time.

Can’t pay won’t pay

Meanwhile the country has gone through a cost-of-living crisis, with the result that EVs that are still significantly more expensive than petrol equivalents can’t even be a consideration for many buyers.

Those who can still afford to switch to an EV and are tempted by one, but unable to have a home-charging point (those that have nice driveways or garages with a wall to fix a home charger on are more likely to be in the minority than the majority) are facing soaring energy costs, including much higher tax rates, for using public chargers that especially on motorways are still too few and too unreliable. It’s no wonder that buyers are switching off rather than on to EVs.

Not surprisingly on the Friday morning after the Election the email inboxes of journalists such as this correspondent quickly filled up with releases from various industry bodies, all suggesting what the new Government should do for automotive – restimulating the EV market was high on everyone’s list.

EV measures were included in a package of suggestions that the RAC issued even before those of us who had sat up very late watching the Election results awoke, admittedly listed after such measures as fixing potholes and putting the hard shoulders back on smart motorways.

The RAC spoke for many when it called on the new Government to reintroduce a plug-in car grant aimed at stimulating the cheaper end of the new car market to make going electric more affordable, and to reduce VAT on public EV charging from the current 20% to match the 5% those using home chargers pay.

Asif Ghafoor, CEO of charge-point provider Be.EV, also believes the Government should be considering ways to make the EV switch tempting again. “There needs to be some encouragement to drivers, and we have a few options here – we could reduce the power cost for those who switch and get rid of the Vat on public EV charging costs,” Ghafoor said.

Among others Sue Robinson of the National Franchised Dealer Association said that her dealer members are telling her that slowing demand in EVs and meeting ZEV mandate targets are the top issue affecting them – and they are the people who in the end will be crucial to encouraging drivers to choose an electric vehicle.

Not spoilt for choice

Meanwhile automotive manufacturers watch the situation with increasing concern as to their next move. Some have threatened to meet the ZEV mandate by simply taking many of their combustion-engined cars off sale, as Suzuki has done, thus reducing consumer choice in the showroom.

This week Ineos announced that the launch of its first electric vehicle, the Fusilier, will be delayed indefinitely because in the current climate it can’t be sure the EV will sell. And while Ineos may be a tiny start-up brand, you can bet similar views are being expressed in much larger automotive board rooms.

By now you may be asking, why has Keir Starmer’s new job made this issue much more urgent? For a simple reason – a core proposal in the Labour election manifesto was to move the planned ban on combustion-engined car sales back to 2030.

So instead of having 13 years to transform car buying from its current total ambivalence towards EVs to a scenario where people are buying nothing else and happy to do so, we have just six years. Dear Prime Minister, we need to talk EV…