The UK government is being pushed by the Ford Motor Co. to mandate consumer incentives to push drivers into electric vehicles (EVs) as an industry backlash grows over imposed sales targets and the marketplace flatly rejecting the product.
Lisa Brankin, Ford UK’s chair and managing director, told the BBC that without induced demand, a government mandate to produce and sell more EVs “just doesn’t work” and consumers must be forced to bend to government edicts.
Her plea adds to a growing tension between the government and the industry over the sale of new petrol and diesel cars being phased out by government decree over the next few years even as demand collapses.
On Tuesday, Stellantis, the owner of Vauxhall, said it would close a plant in Luton, putting 1,100 jobs at risk, partly due to the EV targets.
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds told the House of Commons on Wednesday that Stellantis’s decision was “a dark day for Luton.”
It joins Ford in axing UK jobs, as Breitbart News reported.
Last week, it announced it will cut 800 jobs in the UK over the next three years, due to the EV targets and increased competition from China which is flooding the marketplace with cheap EV alternatives.
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Brankin told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The one thing that we really need is government-backed incentives to urgently boost the uptake of electric vehicles.”
She said Ford has invested “significantly” in the production and development of EVs, with “well over” £350m put into electrification in the UK. “So we kind of need to make it work,” she said.
Under the current government mandate, a percentage of the cars UK companies sell must qualify as zero-emission.
EVs must make up 22 percent of a company’s car sales and 10 percent of its van sales this year.
For every car sale outside of that, firms must pay a £15,000 fine.
That target is set to rise to 28 percent for cars and 16 percent for vans in 2025.
The rules will then get tougher every year ahead of a complete ban of new petrol and diesel car sales by 2030.
