If Starmer sticks to his manifesto pledge to bring the cut off date forward to 2030 once again, I think that more manufacturers will be saying the same thing (I think that some already are?), not least because consumers aren’t behaving themselves and switching to EVs in anywhere near the numbers that are required to meet that trajectory (we aren’t even tracking at a rate to meet the extended 2035 target).
I stumbled across Trumps latest campaign rally speech last night (carried live on Sky News) and, love him or loathe him, he’s box office! He talked about EV’s (as Elon Musk has declared for him this week) and said that whilst he thinks they are great, you can’t force people to buy them when the upfront costs are so high and the range is so poor compared to ICE vehicles. Whether people agree with that or not doesn’t matter. He will be President again in a matter of months and major shifts in America tend to have knock on ramifications here. There is just no way that manufacturer targets alone will force consumers to buy electric cars if they don’t want one or they aren’t practical for them.
Interestingly, one of my nephews got an EV 2 years ago on a 3 year contract. He can’t charge at home and the novelty of charging at public charging points has well and truly worn off and he says that long journeys are a pain. He can’t wait to switch back to a petrol car at the end of the 3 years.