EU car manufacturers 2035: why does everyone want to buy asian EVs who cost half as much, cost 1/10 to fill up and has software that works?
Sucks
Unfortunate
Good. Politics should not decide on specific technologies to use. Politics should focus on outcomes, and let markets figure out how to reach the goals.
Emission standards are good. Politics should do that. But don’t dictate that it has to electric or nothing. Perhaps hydrogen (combustion!) turns out to be better.
Anyone who doesn’t work for a content farm knows that it isn’t “combustion” that’s being banned but traditional gasoline-fueled internal combustion engines.
And yes, governments absolutely should enforce regulations for the greater good since capitalists are utterly incapable of doing so.
Why? Combustion engines are a dead end. European car companies ignored this and kept focusing on ICEs. Now they’re falling behind on EVs, and the solution is… to focus more on ICEs?
At best this will buy the car industry a couple additional years, but doing so will make the crash afterwards even worse.
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First farming, now cars. The EU is definitely winning the race to the bottom they said the UK wanted. Brexit failed, time for Lexit
Last year, over 381,000 electric cars were sold in the UK – more than any country in Europe, and the third highest number of any country in the world. The British public is embracing the move to electric vehicles, benefitting from the cheaper running costs, cleaner air and quieter neighbourhoods that these vehicles bring.
Our domestic vehicle manufacturing industry – an industry that is critical to the UK economy – is embracing this change and rising to the challenge. Collectively, since the announcement of the ZEV Mandate, manufacturers have committed to investing over £20 billion in UK vehicle manufacturing: designing new vehicles, developing new technologies, and ultimately pivoting facilities and supply chains away from fossil-fuelled cars to those running on technologies of the future
Last year, over 381,000 electric cars were sold in the UK – more than any country in Europe, and the third highest number of any country in the world
Riiiight. Well seeing how the population is also the second largest in Europe, that’s a pretty useless statement. Per capita they aren’t even close the one random country (the Netherlands, my other nationality) that I checked.
381k for 70m people in the UK is 5442 per million.
168k for 18m people in the Netherlands is 9333 per million.
Lies and statistics.
Edit: Germany sold 184k in half a year last year and 248k in the first half of this year. https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/germany-sees-record-e-car-sales-first-half-year-data-show-2025-07-16
Germany, UK, France are the biggest markets, UK and France have the same population and the UK sold 100k more than France last year. So more per capita
Why are you only giving 2025 sales for Germany? Lies, damn lies, and statistics eh?
The UK is phasing out all ICE cars by 2030. The EU has just abandoned the pledge do to the same by 2035.
The UK is phasing out all ICE cars by 2030.
Not at this rate they’re not.
The EU has just abandoned the pledge do to the same by 2035.
Because they’re ALSO not going to, at this rate, they’re just admitting it.
Phasing out manufacturing, not all cars, obviously
Is that the best you have got? The EU is winning the race to the bottom they screeched about during the ‘negotiations’, turns out we’d be in a worse place if we had agreed dynamic alignment
Pretty fucking ironic
Get ready to watch the EV sales figures tank with the 3p per mile tax.
That tax should have been based on car weight.
No chance, fleet buyers run the market, company vehicles are going to PHEV and EVs now, they are so much cheaper to run. Govt is losing fuel duty.
I guess we will see, but with the 3p per mile the average EV costs 2x as much per mile to fast charge on the public network as petrol.
I charge mine overnight for 8p per kWh
Great let’s hope your energy provider continues to offer this tariff. People who don’t have a driveway or garage (basically poorer people) have to pay nearly 10x that, or just 7x that if they have 10 hours to waste at a slow charger.
Yep, you do need to have off road parking to have a home charger
There are more options coming though, like using lamppost chargers being rolled out
https://www.ukpowernetworks.co.uk/news/motorists-get-green-light-to-charge-ahead-with-lamp-posts
And most new builds have chargers these days
From what I remember the lamp post chargers are still going to be charged at slow rates so 50-60p/kWh. I just read Octopus is putting a cap of 6 hours on their liver EV charging rate… I wonder when the next change will be.
I’m predicting these overnight/off peak tariffs will continue to trend towards the standard rate as consumers have no choice but to pay it.
Fast charge is an in case you need it option, it’s more expensive than regular charging.
Are you suggesting that the solution is to use slow public chargers? Because the average EV needs to stay on a 7kWh charger for 10 hours, so you need to live really close to one or have sleeping bag in the back seat. Even then they are 18p per mile so 5p more than petrol.
Not everyone has a driveway or garage they can use to charge from home, this policy creates a system where the wealthy can drive for very little, and the poor have to pay a lot more.
