If you don’t have off-street parking to recharge the vehicle from your household electricity supply, which carries a reduced rate of VAT, EVs are also arguably equally expensive to run.
If forcing consumers to buy EVs, it would be perverse to then deny them the opportunity of acquiring the most competitive models at a reasonable price by imposing excessive tariffs.
So let’s for once use our Brexit freedoms to go our own way by resisting the siren calls of EU-inspired protectionism. Obvious security concerns in opening UK markets to Chinese competition – today’s EVs are data-hoovering computers on wheels – can surely be overcome.
As a quid pro quo for tariff-free trade it might also be possible to persuade China’s leading manufacturers to open production lines and battery factories here in the UK, in much the same way as occurred with Japanese auto firms in the 1980s.
To date, Chinese firms have focused plans for European production facilities on EU member states, particularly Hungary, and on Turkey, which is part of Europe’s customs union and therefore enjoys similar tariff-free trade as member states.
One of the better parts of the UK’s Brexit agreement with the EU was continued tariff-free access for the automotive sector, subject to minimum requirements for European components; as with Hungary and Turkey, Chinese producers could therefore avoid EU tariffs by setting up shop in the UK.
The other big decision the Government needs to make is on the intended pathway for reducing and then banning the sale of new ICE vehicles. The economically rational and logical thing to do would be to abandon the mandate entirely, allowing consumers to make their own decisions on the future shape and mix of the car market.
But that’s not an option for Labour, which is committed to making the mandate more punishing still by bringing forward the date for an outright ban on all new ICE vehicles by five years to 2030.
It’s obvious to anyone with any knowledge of the auto industry that this is completely impractical. The last mandate was never going to be met, so what chance is there for an even tougher one?
With the bulk of the year gone, new registrations are nowhere near meeting the mandate’s requirement for this year of 22pc zero-emission vehicles. In the extreme example of Ford, just 3pc of sales are electric.
The rules allow for carry over into future years, and for trading of quotas among manufacturers, so threatened fines of £15,000 per vehicle for failure to meet the mandate are unlikely this year at least.
Even so, at some stage they have to start biting if they are to ensure compliance. What are the politicians going to do then?
Stand meekly by as manufacturers close plants to meet the rules? Bankrupt already struggling producers by imposing fines they cannot pay? Or perhaps they would prefer to see the fines passed through to the consumer, with the cost of buying a car soaring accordingly.
Politically, the mandate is completely unrealistic. It may take time for Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, and Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary, to come to terms with such a climb-down, but climb down they will.
