By Professor David Bailey
11th February 2026

Move the 2030 Petrol Car Ban to 2035, and Fix the EV Transition Properly.

Thanks for all the feedback on the last  Blog from the Blackstuff calling for a review of the ZEV Mandate (something that the SMMT has called for), with people asking ‘OK, what should be done?’  That got me thinking, and here’s some ideas (and I write this as a real EV volt-head who has been happily driving EVs for over a decade).

Any future review of EV policy by the government is needs to go beyond a narrow assessment of targets and compliance. Instead, ministers should look to rebalance the system as a whole, trying to better align supply, demand, infrastructure, and public confidence, so as to create a more resilient and durable transition.

The challenge isn’t whether the UK should move to electric vehicles, but how to make that shift work better for consumers, the UK auto industry, and the wider economy.

First, though, what’s the problem?

The bottom line is that Britain’s EV strategy is running ahead of reality. The policy architecture looks bold on paper, but on the ground it is beginning to creak. The policy centrepiece, the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate, forces manufacturers to sell an increasing share of electric cars each year, rising steeply to 80 per cent by 2030 on the way to 100 per cent by 2035. It is designed to make the transition inevitable.

But inevitability can’t simply be legislated into existence.

The uncomfortable truth is that Britain is not yet in shape for 2030 to function as a meaningful end-point for new pure petrol and diesel cars. The country risks confusing regulatory ambition with delivery capacity. Unless ministers reset the timetable now, they risk turning a necessary climate policy into a political liability.

Let’s be clear. The ZEV mandate has done one important job well: it has told manufacturers that electric is the future. Carmakers have shifted production plans, supply chains are reorienting, and product pipelines are increasingly electric. But supply is only half the equation. Demand remains fragile.

And as I keep stressing, supply-side pressure has moved faster than demand-side readiness. Dealers report growing stock levels, discounting is becoming deeply structural, and some manufacturers face the prospect of penalties not because they lack EVs, but because customers are hesitant to buy them. And anyway fining the firms making the investment in EVs was never a good idea.

In short, as I keep telling my first year students – the market comprised supply and demand. And on the demand side, private buyers remain wary of upfront prices, volatile second-hand values and rising insurance costs. Households without driveways remain uncertain about charging convenience. Public charging infrastructure is expanding, but reliability, transparency and user experience remain inconsistent outside of London and the South-East.

None of this amounts to failure, but it does amount to friction.

The political problem is that 2030 has taken on a symbolic status far greater than its technical definition. Officially, the UK has already moderated its approach: no new pure petrol and diesel cars from 2030, but hybrids permitted until 2035, with all new cars zero-emission by that final date. Yet in public debate, 2030 is still framed as the great cliff edge, the moment of prohibition. And cliff edges invite backlash.

If the everyday experience of drivers in much of the country in 2028 or 2029 is patchy charging, confusing charging tariffs and persistent affordability concerns, the transition won’t feel smooth or inevitable. It will feel imposed. And that’s how mainstream climate policy becomes politicised.

Meanwhile, Europe is signalling a more pragmatic final stretch. The EU’s post-2035 framework is evolving towards greater flexibility, seeking to reduce industrial and political risk at the tail end of the transition. Whether one agrees with the details or not, the broader lesson is clear: major markets are trying to manage the landing carefully.

The UK should do the same.

Shifting the effective phase-out of new ICE-only vehicles from 2030 to 2035 would not represent retreat. It would represent realism. Five years in industrial and transport policy terms isn’t capitulation; it’s a breathing space. It would allow ministers to focus the remainder of this decade on the fundamentals rather than defending an increasingly brittle milestone which had anyway been plucked out of the air as a target date.

Those fundamentals are obvious. Public charging must be reliable, simple and transparent across the country. Uptime standards should be enforced. Pricing should be clear before drivers plug in and not after. Payment systems should be universal rather than fragmented across apps. Affordable on-street charging for households without private parking needs scaling at rapid pace, backed by consistent national frameworks rather than postcode lotteries.

The second-hand EV market also needs attention. Mass adoption will not happen through £40,000 new cars; it will happen through trusted, affordable used vehicles. That means standardised battery health certification to underpin buyer confidence, stable residual values and clear consumer protections. It also means long-term clarity on tax treatment so buyers aren’t second-guessing the next tax-raising ruse in the next Budget.

Above all, ministers must stabilise the narrative. Policy can’t keep flipping between grandiose targets and quiet retreats. Industry, investors and consumers all require certainty more than they require theatrics. A single, unambiguous commitment to 2035 as the hard end-date would be clearer, and more credible, than clinging to 2030 as a rhetorical badge of ambition.

Climate leadership isn’t measured by how aggressive a headline date appears. It is measured by whether policy survives contact with voters and markets. A transition that collapses into backlash helps no one: not drivers, not manufacturers and not the climate.

The electric future is not in doubt. That is clear. But the timetable must match the terrain. If Britain wants the shift to feel inevitable rather than coercive, it should stop pretending 2030 is a test of willpower and start treating 2035 as the serious delivery deadline. That gets us to Net Zero by 2050 in good shape. Use the next five years to fix infrastructure, mature the market and build confidence.

Do that, and the transition will stick. Fail to do it, and no amount of regulatory bravado will save it.

Professor David Bailey works at the Birmingham Business School