Open letter to the Secretary of State – Protect the ZEV Mandate

Dear Secretary of State,

I am writing an open letter as the Chief Executive of EVA England, the country’s only independent consumer body representing electric vehicle drivers, to request an urgent meeting with you following the recent debate being carried out in the media about weakening the ZEV Mandate.

I also wanted to share our new report, Putting the Driver First, which highlights how vital it is to make sure that the driver’s experience of going electric is taken into account when looking at the Mandate and the underlying policies that support it.

As a drivers’ body, we are seriously concerned that this voice is getting lost at a critical point in the EV transition. Consumers are the people most directly affected by the shift to electric vehicles. They are not being mandated to buy electric, they must choose to do so. Their confidence, affordability concerns and day-to-day experiences should not be peripheral to decision-making, they should be central to it.

Reports that the Government may again weaken the Mandate risk sending precisely the wrong signal to drivers, as well as industry and investors. Drivers need certainty. They need confidence that the cars they are being asked to buy are the right choice, and that means stopping the very public back and forth arguments over the ZEV mandate and maintaining it as it is: as a strong and stable policy backbone for the transition.

UK drivers are not anti-EV: many are already considering electric cars as they would any major household purchase, and are ready to switch where the price, charging and practical fundamentals are right. Those who have switched overwhelmingly support the move, with EVA England research showing that 95% of EV drivers would not go back to petrol or diesel.

But our new report also shows that we are about to hit the hardest part of the transition – where we are asking those on lower- and middle-incomes and those without driveways to buy into a technology that is still too expensive, and does not yet work for them. The Mandate, in and of itself, plays a vital role in helping address those barriers by driving the investment we will need to see to create an industry that works for the driver. And we need Government attention to be focussed on the critical role it must play in addressing those barriers, not on re-opening the Mandate, or the transition will fail. Upfront cost remains the leading barrier for many lower and middle-income households, even where drivers are open to going electric. Charging access and charging costs are creating a two-tier transition and a major structural divide, particularly for the estimated 40% of households without access to a driveway, who are reliant on expensive public charging at chargepoints that often do not work or are inaccessible.

Our report also raises our continued serious concerns about the proposed introduction of electric Vehicle Excise Duty and any future pay-per-mile model at such a sensitive moment in the transition. With only 5.5% of the total car parc electric, British consumers currently being extremely price-sensitive, and 40% still EV sceptical, now is not the right time to introduce an additional tax that many drivers see as an EV-only tax. It risks undermining confidence just when we need to focus on making sure more drivers are beginning to see EVs as a viable, practical option.

I would therefore welcome the opportunity to discuss these concerns with you, or the most relevant Minister, as a matter of urgency. In the meantime, a short summary of our report’s three key pillars is included in this letter, which I hope will give insight into the practical measures we believe would get drivers into electric cars at this critical stage of the transition.

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Vicky Edmonds                                                                                         
Chief Executive Officer                                                                                         
EVA England