The UK government is expected this week to cut its 2030 zero-emission car sales target to about 60% from 80%, The Guardian reported, a retreat carmakers have lobbied for and one the prime minister’s office says has not been decided.
Louise Haigh, the First Secretary of State, will finalize the plan after a meeting in Downing Street on Wednesday called to settle a dispute between the transport, energy and business departments, the newspaper said, citing government sources. She is also expected to extend the scheme’s compliance flexibilities to 2034.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham dismissed the report on Monday. “They’re reports, they’re speculation and no decision has been made at this point,” he said during a visit to Watford, adding that the consultation on the mandate “concluded only a fortnight ago.”
The decision comes as fully electric cars took 32.0% of new registrations in October, the highest share this year and up from 25.4% a year earlier, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). It is not a record.
The share reached 32.2% in December 2025. For the first ten months, it was 26.6%, against a mandated 33% for 2026.
The government aims to publish its response to the consultation by the end of 2026, “with a view to any changes taking effect from the 2027 compliance year,” Transport Minister Simon Lightwood told Parliament on last week. “No policy decisions have been made yet,” he said.
Who Decides
Burnham has recused himself because his wife, Marie-France van Heel, advises the board of Be.EV, a Manchester-based charging network, according to The Guardian. That leaves the call to Haigh, who has held the posts of First Secretary of State, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office since July 20.
The newspaper described a three-way split in the cabinet. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds has argued for 50%, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander is believed to favor about 60%, and Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh and her predecessor Ed Miliband, now Foreign Secretary, are understood to want the target left at 80%.
Haigh has told colleagues she does not want them returning later to ask for another reduction, it reported.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said the government is “fully behind the zero emission vehicle mandate, and no decisions have been taken yet.” He said the end of sales of new cars running solely on petrol or diesel in 2030, and the requirement that all new cars and vans be zero-emission by 2035, are not changing.
The Options
The mandate requires each manufacturer to sell a rising share of zero-emission cars every year. The share is 33% this year, 38% in 2027, 52% in 2028, 66% in 2029 and 80% in 2030, on the way to 100% in 2035.
The Department for Transport opened a review on August 14 and closed it on October 23. “It’s right we keep targets under review to ensure they’re practical and back British industry,” Alexander said at the launch. Its consultation paper sets out four alternatives for cars.
The first lowers the 2030 target to 70%. The second lowers it to 60%, with the steps before it falling to 36% in 2027, 44% in 2028 and 52% in 2029. The third lowers it to 50%, with a 2028 target of 37%. The fourth keeps 80% and only extends the flexibilities.
Under the 60% path, the targets after 2030 would rise by eight points a year to 92% in 2034 and 100% in 2035.
All four options extend to 2034 the mechanisms that let manufacturers comply without selling the required number of electric cars. Those include borrowing allowances from future years, banking surpluses, converting CO2 savings on combustion cars into credit and transferring credit between cars and vans. They currently expire in 2029.
None of the options changes the 33% target for 2026. The fine stays at £12,000 ($16,100) for each car short of the target and £15,000 ($20,100) for each van, though the paper invites views on the level. The fines were £15,000 and £18,000 before changes announced in April 2025.
Van targets are under review too. The 2030 requirement of 70% would fall to 60%, 50% or 40% under the equivalent options. Electric vans had their best month on record in September with a 9.6% share and stood at 10.8% for the year to date, against a 24% target for the year.
The Cost in Carbon
The government’s own figures put a price on each choice. A 60% target would forgo an average of 5.6 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent a year in the sixth carbon budget period, or 4% of the savings planned across the whole economy, according to the consultation paper.
The 50% option would cost 8.4 million tons a year, or 6%. The 70% option would cost 3.2 million tons, or 2%. Extending the flexibilities alone would cost 0.5 million tons, or 0.3%. The paper calls the figures illustrative.
The mandate is the largest single source of emissions cuts in the government’s plans, accounting for nearly 14% of the reductions pledged between 2028 and 2032, The Guardian reported.
The Industry’s Case
Carmakers argue the targets were written for a market that no longer exists. SMMT Chief Executive Mike Hawes said in June that the assumptions behind the mandate “no longer hold.”
The trade body expects battery electric cars to end 2026 at 27.2% of the market. It forecasts 32% in 2027 against a 38% target, and 37.5% in 2028 against 52%, a gap of 14.5 points that is more than double this year’s.
“Higher targets may force supply, but they do not create demand,” Hawes said last week. “The ZEV Mandate review must deliver substantive reform effective immediately.”
The official data show how the industry has complied so far. Zero-emission cars were 19.8% of sales in 2024 against a 22% target, and a provisional 23.3% in 2025 against 28%. The market as a whole met its obligations in 2024 by using the flexibilities and is expected to do so again for 2025, the consultation paper says.
That has a cost, and the two sides measure it differently. Manufacturers have absorbed more than £10 billion ($13.4 billion) of EV discounting over two years, Hawes wrote in June. The SMMT put the 2025 bill at more than £5 billion ($6.7 billion), or about £11,000 ($14,800) for each battery electric car sold.
The government’s estimate is far lower. Allowances traded at about £4,000 ($5,400) each in 2024, and extra discounting on zero-emission models averaged about £2,800 ($3,800) a vehicle in 2025, according to the paper.
The SMMT has also asked the government to reconsider the pay-per-mile tax on electric cars due in 2028. Last month’s Budget kept the April 2028 start for the charge, set at 3 pence a mile for electric cars, and set aside £100 million ($134.3 million) over two years to lower prices at slower public chargers.
On the other side of the ledger, the Electric Car Grant of up to £3,750 ($5,000) has helped more than 160,000 buyers since July 2025, the Department for Transport said in August.
The pressure is not only regulatory. Chinese brands took more than 25% of UK sales in September, and ministers are reported to be weighing tariffs on Chinese-built EVs. Nissan, which builds cars in Sunderland, has pressed for them.
Not every carmaker wants relief. Tesla told the government in a 2025 consultation that new flexibilities “will suppress battery electric vehicle supply.”
The brand registered 15,875 vehicles in September alone, while October figures fell 45% year over year to 282 units. The first month of each quarter often sees the lowest number of vehicles registered by the Elon Musk-led company due to its logistics-related strategy.
Britain would not be moving alone. The European Parliament’s environment committee voted 48 to 30 on November 4 to lower the European Union’s 2035 CO2 reduction target for new cars to 87.5% from 100%, with a vote of the full Parliament expected in December.
