Car makers 'withholding deliveries of new petrol and diesel models until January' to hit 2024 EV sales targets
If you're one of thousands of drivers with a new petrol or diesel car on order, don't expect to have it in time for Christmas... or New Year's Eve.
That's because car makers are holding back deliveries until January in the latest underhand tactic to meet binding electric vehicle sales targets and avoid hefty fines, according to a boss at a leading car retailer chain.
Robert Forrester, chief executive of Vertu Motors, said dealers are being forced to delay customers from taking delivery of their new cars, which are being held in 'compounds' until January.
This is because car companies are desperate to avoid penalties for failing to register a 22 per cent share of EVs in 2024, which is the binding threshold set out by the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate introduced this year.
Failure to meet the 22 per cent target can result in fines of £15,000 per vehicle short of the required threshold.
By restricting the availability of new petrol and diesel cars until the new year, manufacturers are 'rationing by the back door' in a bid to artificially inflate EV sales figures, Forrester said.
'Christmas is coming and there will be thousands of car customers of different dealerships around the UK who cannot take delivery of their cars because they are being held over until January and the new ‘quota year’.
'It’s rationing by the back door.'
Forrester has already been heavily critical of the ZEV mandate and the impact it is having on the new car market.
In September, he suggested dealers had been facing 'a restriction on supply of petrol cars and hybrid cars', despite these motors being in highest demand.
'It's almost as if we can't supply the cars that people want, but we've got plenty of the cars that maybe they don't want,' he said earlier in the year, suggesting showrooms were being forced to push sales of electric vehicles in the face of limited consumer appetite.
In his latest comments in an exclusive column written for Auto Express, he said the mandate 'risks destroying the UK car industry for good' as he revealed the latest in a long list of tactics deployed by auto firms to hit the government's EV sales quotas.
He said his dealers are leading the sector for electric car sales but even their volumes are 'still nowhere near the government's arbitrary targets'.
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