The weakening of the UK’s electric car mandate represents a major collision between the government’s industrial strategy and its legally binding Net Zero pledge. The decision shows that when the two conflict, protecting incumbent industry can take precedence.
The Net Zero pledge requires a rapid decarbonisation of all sectors, with transport being one of the most critical. The ZEV mandate was the primary policy tool to achieve this for passenger cars. Its strength and speed were calibrated to meet the UK’s carbon budgets.
However, the UK’s unwritten industrial strategy is to maintain a significant domestic car manufacturing base. The industry successfully argued that the ZEV mandate, as a climate tool, was directly harming this industrial strategy by making the UK uncompetitive and threatening jobs.
Faced with this clash, the government weakened the climate policy to support the industrial one. This has been praised by the SMMT for avoiding “de-industrialisation” but slammed by climate experts, who warn that the UK may now struggle to meet its carbon targets without finding drastic emission cuts elsewhere.