Going back to EV sales success and the current public "nobody wants to buy an EV " discussion the Autocar business page had an interesting article on which UK importers were ready to get to the gov't mandate of 22% BEV's in 2024.
Obviously, Tesla and the Chinese i.e. MG are fine. BMW and MB are close based on 2023 sales of EV's . That surprised me but they sell premium price cars where the battery cost is easier to absorb, and mostly to business fleets where the income tax advantage is huge. Jaguar Land Rover , or JLR now, are nowhere and are basically selling just diesels until 2025. They will either roll forward the 2024 shortfall and make 2025 harder or buy credits from Tesla or Chinese.
The interesting bit is the sudden slump in Q4 2023 EV registrations. You might think that is consumer rejection of EV's but it is thought the real reason is importers holding back EV supply so they can deliver the backlog in 2024 when it really matters!!
So the market in the UK will be subject to all sorts of sales manipulation and , I suspect, any importer in trouble will do the obvious and raise petrol/hybrid prices sharply once the EV supply is assured.
So the cry of "EV's cost too much vs petrol cars " may well be solved but not the way consumers think as petrol will go up towards EV pricing to swing the demand?
I think something similar happened with US CAFE in the late 70's early 80's . Perhaps Mago can remember?
Edited by mariner, 07 January 2024 - 19:12.