Transport Insights

With Andy Burnham describing Britain as “a tinderbox”, you might think the government has picked the wrong day to quit pretending it is taking action on the climate emergency.

The DfT has announced:

Vehicle manufacturers, suppliers, charge point operators, dealers, consumers and communities are being asked for their views on the pathway to ending sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 and ensuring all new cars and vans are zero emission by 2035, as the government today (14 August 2026) launches a consultation on the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate.

Officially, the 2030 targets respectively for ending sails of new petrol and diesel (only) cars and non-zero emission cars by 2035 remain but when you remember that plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) will currently be 20% of the market from 2030 and this might go up to 50%, there is no point in pretending that 2030 will have any meaning.

The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) points out that PHEVs have been found to consume five times more fuel than their manufacturers claim, which means that their real-world CO2 emissions are little better than a regular petrol car, and they cost almost twice as much to run as their manufacturers claim.

The main problem with a (very heavy) PHEV is that you don’t have to plug it in and many users don’t.

Colin Walker, Head of Transport at the ECIU says:

By incentivising the industry to sell more plug-in hybrids the Government risks another ‘dieselgate’, encouraging the uptake of vehicles that burn five times more fuel, and cost almost twice as much to run, than their manufacturers claim, and cost significantly more to buy, and hundreds of pounds a year more to run, than an electric car.

He also notes that:

With 80% of cars made in the UK exported and with a surge of EV sales in Europe, by far and away the UK’s largest export market, the real risk our car industry faces is a repeat of the 70s and 80s, when a failure to innovate in the face of competition from abroad resulted in factory closures and mass redundancies.

I really don’t know what Burnham is thinking, except I note that he also sacrificed the health of people in Greater Manchester by avoiding bringing in a clean air zone.