UK Cabinet Minister Michael Gove suggested last month that being more flexible about green pledges will bolster the Tories’ chances against Labour in the next general election.
“If people think that you are treating the cause of the environment as a religious crusade, in which you’re dividing the world into goodies and baddies, then you alienate the support that you need for thoughtful environmentalism,” Gove said in an interview with the Telegraph.
While Sunak has so far resisted explicit calls to roll back the 2030 policy, he’s walking a fine line, telling the same newspaper last week that he’s on drivers’ side.
Rishi Sunak, center, visiting Jaguar Land Rover’s plant in Warwickshire on July 19.Photographer: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Slatter, who’s transitioning out of his job as Ford UK chair in the coming weeks to take on a global role, doesn’t want or expect to see a rollback of the 2030 policy. It wouldn’t be in the automaker’s interest, as it’s committed to having an all-electric lineup of passenger cars for Europe by the end of the decade.
Wobbling by the government would risk sending the wrong signal to the companies and investors Ford is counting on to build enough charging infrastructure to support the shift to EVs.
What Ford and the broader UK car industry could use more so than a debate over rules for 2030 is more initiative around nearer-term policies. The auto industry is still waiting for the Department for Transport to finalize its zero-emission vehicle, or ZEV, mandate that’s scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1.
The proposed minimum ZEV target for each manufacturer’s sales next year of 22% would be a stretch for most companies, considering roughly 16% of new cars sold in the first half of the year were battery-electric. That industrywide share includes sales by Tesla Inc., which only sells EVs.
Slatter is concerned that the mandate won’t recognize the latest industry forecasts suggesting that EV adoption will slow due to the toll that rising living costs are taking on consumers. Also up in the air is whether carmakers can avoid 10% tariffs on EU-built EVs entering the UK market because of Brexit-deal rules requiring battery materials to be sourced locally.
Without more refinement and clarity of the ZEV mandate, Ford’s plan to bring nine EVs to the market by 2025 “will be met with more difficulty,” Slatter said, adding that the EU trade rules “pose a threat to our business and investment plans.”
Source: Bloomberg.com
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