Car manufacturers ‘aren’t interested in selling electric vehicles’

That’s the opinion of Greg Archer, Director of Clean Vehicles at Transport and Environment, who spoke to ELN yesterday

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Car manufacturers aren’t interested in selling electric vehicles (EVs).

That’s the verdict from Greg Archer, Director of Clean Vehicles at Transport and Environment (T&E), who spoke to ELN yesterday at the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership’s annual conference.

He said this has resulted in insufficient supply of EVs, very little choice in the market, high costs and even discouragement from car salesmen and dealerships as they push customers towards more profitable internal combustion models.

However, he believes this will change within a year to 18 months as emissions regulations from the EU come into force in 2020 and 2021, meaning manufacturers will need to sell more electric cars to make sure they’re not fined.

Mr Archer expects this to result in prices coming down, more choice and much more competition.

He said: “I think the government has made a really bold step in its Road to Zero strategy that it published on Monday.

“I think it’s laid out a really impressive series of actions that it plans to carry out over the next few years that really puts the UK as a genuine world leader in terms of trying to promote EVs – we’re behind China but if we deliver this strategy we’ll be ahead of everybody else.”

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