New Road Vehicle CO2 Emissions Regulatory Framework for the UK

The UK government’s proposals for a Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate are on the right track, T&E has said. But in this response to a public consultation on the Green Paper on a New Road Vehicle CO₂ Emissions Regulatory Framework for the UK, T&E said there are risks that the policy will fail to deliver the intended shift to zero emission vehicles and lead to much higher CO₂ emissions. This is because details in the policy design encourage the widespread adoption of hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles in place of genuine zero-emission battery electric models.

Contrary to industry claims PHEVs are not a transition technology but compete for market share with BEVs and a high market share of PHEVs will result in a lower uptake of BEVs. Due to the elevated real world emissions of PHEVs, hybrids and conventional cars compared to their test emissions, any increase in their sales at the cost of lower BEV sales leads to higher CO₂ emissions reducing the benefits of the policy and making it more difficult to achieve 6th Carbon Budget targets.

To manage this risk T&E has a number of key messages in its response, which can be downloaded on this page.