The Shadow Minister for Roads has confirmed that Labour will reinstate the 2030 target ban on gas-powered vehicle sales in the UK to encourage electric driving among consumers and instill confidence in the industry’s investors.
UK’s Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, had announced in September that the mandate’s target date would be pushed from 2030 to 2035.
Recharge, the EV arm of the Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology, said the UK would lose over £100m in investment without the previous mandate.
Shadow Roads Minister Bill Esterson said: “The big change that has undermined the transition was Rishi Sunak saying we’re going to delay the introduction of new electric vehicles.
“It gave the message to consumers that you don’t need to bother about it. Allied to all the misinformation that is out there now, it has really undermined the whole movement,” Fleet World reports.
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Esterson added: “We have seen three months where new sales of electric vehicles have fallen. The only place where it has really kept going is fleet sales.
“All that is going to happen is manufacturers will reduce the number of vehicles that they are putting on the market so they still hit their quotas.
“That isn’t a good place to be. We need to increase the numbers of people buying, and we need private buyers to want to buy them,” according to Current News.
