No petrol or diesel cars by 2030 is a ballsy target

The motor industry trade body thinks it’s feasible but a lot more needs to be done to reach what now seems impossible, writes Chris Blackhurst

In 2030 no new cars sold in Britain can be petrol or diesel, in accordance with the country’s climate-change commitments (Getty/iStock)

Last year was the second-worst year since 1992 for new car sales. So says the UK’s motor industry trade body, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, or SMMT.

The reasons proffered for the dismal performance are the continuing impact of Covid and a shortage of semiconductors, which are used extensively in modern vehicle manufacturing.

Wait, there is good news: 2021 was the “most successful year in history” for electric vehicle uptake, as more new, battery-powered vehicles were registered “than over the previous five years combined”.

That’s impressive, until you realise that electric cars and vans are a recent phenomenon, so the word “history” is stretching it more than a bit. As indeed is saying that a greater number were sold than over the previous five years put together – that is also hardly a surprise, since in 2016 there were barely any models available, and now every manufacturer, give or take, is producing electric.

Still, we get the gist: that electric vehicles, or EVs, are the coming force – they accounted for one in four sales in December, says the SMMT, and they’re growing rapidly in number. They need to, since the government has decreed that in 2030, which is less than eight years away, no new cars sold in Britain can be petrol or diesel, in accordance with the country’s “net zero” climate-change commitments.

That’s a striking target. I might say bold, or even ballsy. I could go further and say impossible. But then, looking at the statistics issued by the SMMT, it seems perfectly possible that it could be met. Clearly, more and more EVs, versus the increasingly old-fashioned petrol and diesel models, are being driven off the forecourts every single day. Keep it up and yes, by 2030, the latter will have disappeared from showrooms.

But the upbeat tone of the SMMT where EVs are concerned masks underlying problems. First is that the overall figure is down. The pandemic has severely dented trade in big-ticket, often business-related, items – of which the car or van is an obvious one. The economy is depressed; people and businesses are not buying new vehicles. Possibly they’re waiting, too, until the old petrol or diesel runner claps out, at which point they will replace it with something new and electric.

There is, though, another issue, which is given as a reason for the slump: the shortage of semiconductors. These computer chips are everywhere in the modern vehicle. Long gone are the days when anything computerised in a car or van was regarded as a source of wonder. Some cars now on sale require up to 3,000 semiconductors to operate everything, from managing the engine most efficiently to emergency brakes, cruise control, airbags, and the satnav and audio system.

By now, with sales rising and that 2030 date looming, you could be forgiven for supposing that the degree of activity being undertaken to ready the UK for EVs would be furious. It isn’t

The difficulty is that the chips are not unique to automobiles – they’re elsewhere as well, in all manner of products, especially computer electronics. Manufacturers, mostly in Asia, are struggling to match demand – a difficulty exacerbated by Covid.

This is an underlying flaw in the drive to electric that must be resolved. Another is that making the cars and vans is one thing, but installing sufficient charging points is quite another. EVs are being sold all right. But where is the infrastructure rollout to feed that accelerating trend?

According to Zap Map, a website that lists charging points around Britain, there are 30,000 public chargers, “an increase of more than a third since 2020”. Here we go again. An increase of a third may appear substantial, but not if you began with next to nothing. We should be putting in charging points at a much faster pace if we want to cover the nation adequately by 2030.

Here, though, there is another crack in the hyperbole: outside London and the southeast, the take-up of EVs is much slower. That may be explained by the fact that electric vehicles are more expensive, and that parts of the economy in the southeast region, such as the City of London, have not been so severely harmed by Covid – bankers, lawyers, accountants and the like have enjoyed record earnings. The other factor is that there are simply more charging points around London and the southeast.

Where I live, in southwest London, there are chargers freely available in many of the streets and car parks. When I go north, to visit relatives, I will see barely a handful.

The government wants us to charge at home. If I walk down my road at night, there will be two or three cables going across the pavement, from houses into cars. Is that going to be multiplied several times over for blocks of flats, all leaving their windows open and trailing leads?

It may wish us to add our own chargers, but the government is going in a strange direction. Last month, the maximum plug-in grant was cut, from £2,500 to £1,500. At the same time, the number of models eligible for the subsidy was also trimmed. It’s a curious way to behave, and given the absence of chargers, casts doubt on the government’s commitment. By now, with sales rising and that 2030 date looming, you could be forgiven for supposing that the degree of activity being undertaken to ready the UK for EVs would be furious. It isn’t, and that does make you wonder.

Sales might be powering ahead, but that is only one part of the picture. If 2030 is not going to become another kite flown by this prime minister, much more must be done, and fast.