Every government loves inheriting a good crisis, and Andy Burnham has just been handed one on wheels. The Zero Emission Vehicle mandate, the rulebook forcing car makers to sell an ever-steeper share of electric cars each year, was signed off by the last Conservative government and came into force in January 2024. Labour kept it running. Now, with EV demand refusing to play ball, Burnham's ministers look ready to admit what the industry has been saying for months, the plan is unworkable.
Why the mandate doesn't work
The target for this year is 33% of a manufacturer's new car sales going electric, climbing to 80% by 2030. Real-world demand has been running comfortably below that, closer to the mid-20s, and manufacturers have been propping up the gap with discounting, credit trading between brands and borrowing against future years' allowances. That's not a mandate doing its job. That's a mandate being kept on life support by accounting tricks while ministers hope buyers catch up.
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Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh gave the game away in an interview with The Times, saying the transition has to work for people's pockets, not just Whitehall's spreadsheets. The Department for Transport is now expected to consult on loosening the annual targets and the flexibilities that sit around them.
What isn't changing
The 2030 date for the end of new fully petrol and diesel car sales stays put, at least for now, with certain hybrids allowed to linger until 2035.
If you've been holding off on a new car hoping for a wider choice of petrol, diesel and hybrid models, a softer mandate buys you exactly that, for a while longer at least.
The politics get messier
Burnham's timing is awkward. BP put its North Sea business up for sale this month after six decades in British waters, and the Conservatives have wasted no time blaming Labour's climate policy for scaring off investment, pushing for licences at Jackdaw and Rosebank to be approved. A government softening its EV targets while simultaneously fielding accusations of chasing oil jobs out of Aberdeen is not a comfortable place to be standing.
The verdict
A mandate that nobody outside Whitehall could hit as written was never going to survive an affordability crisis, and Burnham is right to loosen it rather than keep pretending the targets were realistic. The mistake would be treating this as a retreat from electric cars altogether. It isn't. The 2030 ban still stands, EVs are still where this is heading, and the industry still needs the certainty a workable timetable gives it. Admitting the pace was wrong is the sensible call. Burnham just needs to say so plainly instead of letting a quiet DfT consultation do the talking for him.