The UK’s auto manufacturing industry will likely miss its 2024 target of electric vehicle sales as drivers lack the “fiscal incentive” to switch to EVs, the main industry body and several manufacturers wrote in a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) called on the Labour government to introduce new incentives for EV buyers as the car manufacturing industry by itself cannot sustain the costs amid flailing demand for EVs.
“Unfortunately, the private consumer has no fiscal incentive to switch and so our [zero emission vehicle] market looks set to miss its target,” SMMT’s chief executive Mike Hawes wrote in an open letter to the chancellor ahead of the UK’s autumn budget to be unveiled in late October.
“The consequences of this will not just be environmental, but economic,” the industry representatives wrote in the letter carried by the Financial Times.
“We appreciate the severe constraints on the public purse. But deliver this support to consumers and the benefits are myriad: a thriving market, enhanced consumer choice and affordability, investment attractiveness, high value job creation, cleaner air, quieter streets and economic growth,” the letter also reads.
“With the right measures, the right consumer support, we can fix the foundations of this transition and with it deliver the biggest technology transition ever attempted, and the economic growth and environmental improvements that should be non-negotiable,” the auto industry’s representatives wrote in the letter.
Amid slowing sales of EVs globally, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, ACEA, last month also called for urgent action to reverse this year’s trend of declining EV sales.
The European auto manufacturers, united in ACEA, called on the EU institutions “to come forward with urgent relief measures before new CO2 targets for cars and vans come into effect in 2025.”
Europe’s automakers “are playing our part in this transition, but unfortunately, the other necessary elements for this systemic shift are not in place,” ACEA said.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
