Time for a reality check on the road to 2030

Walking away from the SMMT Electrified conference recently, it was hard to ignore the growing sense of unease. While the official line from the dispatch box remains “ironclad” in its commitment to the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate, the view from the factory floor and the fleet depot is starting to look markedly different.

We are currently witnessing a multi-billion-pound game of chicken. SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes revealed that manufacturers have effectively propped up the market to the tune of £10bn in discounts since 2024 – an average of £11,000 per vehicle just to drag demand up to meet the current targets. As Hawes rightly pointed out, this is an unsustainable emergency measure.

For those of us in the fleet sector, the ‘compliance cliff edge’ of 2027 is no longer a distant dot on the horizon. To date, manufacturers have managed to hit their numbers by using ‘flexibilities’ – essentially regulatory accounting tricks that allow them to trade credits or borrow against future years.

But from 2027, the safety net starts to fray. The mandate trajectory accelerates sharply, requiring the electric car market share to more than double and the van share to quadruple in just two years, all while those crucial flexibilities begin to expire.

The transition for cars has arguably been the easy part, greased by the wheels of generous Benefit-in-Kind (BiK) rates. For vans, the conversation is entirely different. Fitness for purpose is the only metric that matters, and the data shared by Ford chair Lisa Brankin should give every policymaker pause. When only 16% of Ford’s commercial vehicle customers can get through a working day without stopping to charge, you aren’t just asking businesses to change their fuel; you’re asking them to take a hit on productivity.

However, there is a serious caution for those sitting on the sidelines. While the infrastructure and vehicle range might not be perfect yet, fleets waiting until they are forced down the EV route in later years are courting disaster.

Those who haven’t yet experimented are missing out on the vital data needed to understand how EVs are best utilised. When the cliff edge arrives, those without established routines and telematics insights will find themselves on the back foot against rivals who have already done the hard yards of trial and error.

The Government has confirmed it won’t publish its review of the mandate until early next year. In the fast-moving world of fleet procurement, that feels like a lifetime away. We don’t need a review in 2027 to tell us what we already know today: the gap between regulatory ambition and operational reality is widening.

Leading the transition is one thing, but as any fleet manager knows, if you get too far ahead of your drivers – or fail to give them the tools to keep up – you end up leading them nowhere.