In a move that has sent shockwaves of apathy through the cabinet, the British government has announced a strategic retreat from its electric car sales targets, citing 'market realities' and 'the sudden discovery that asking people to spend forty grand on a milk float is rather hard.' The new target, watered down from a mandatory 28% of new car sales being electric by 2024 to a frankly limp-wristed 22%, was hailed by transport minister Gwendoline 'I've Never Used a Bus' Hargreaves as 'a pragmatic step that balances environmental ambition with the bleeding obvious truth that nobody wants to buy a car that has the range of a disgruntled hamster.'
This breathtakingly useless compromise comes after months of whining from the car industry, which collectively wrung its hands and pointed at a chart showing that only 16.5% of new car sales were electric last year. 'It's simple mathematics,' boomed Sir Reginald Fothergill-Smythe of the British Vehicle Manufacturers' Association, adjusting his cravat. 'You can't flog a dead horse, and you certainly can't flog an electric horse, because it's run out of juice on the A34 and the owner is currently using a public charger that has been vandalised by someone who thinks the net zero agenda is a plot by woke lizard people.'
Meanwhile, the government's own climate advisors, the Climate Change Committee, have released a statement that reads, in part, 'What in the bloody hell are you doing?' They point out that the UK has a legally binding target to reach net zero emissions by 2050, and that weakening electric car sales targets is like trying to lose weight by eating slightly fewer doughnuts while still shovelling the whole box into your gob. But who listens to experts? Certainly not a government that has decided that the best way to encourage green transport is to threaten to fine car manufacturers unless they sell more electric cars, but then immediately cave and reduce the fine because the manufacturers said it was a bit tricky.
This is, of course, pure theatre. The government knows it, the car companies know it, and even the poor sod who just paid £45,000 for a Nissan Leaf and has to plan his life around the five working charging points within a 50-mile radius knows it. The whole system is a pantomime of greenwashing, a dance between Treasury officials who want to keep the petrol tax flowing and environmentalists who want to see the future happen yesterday. But let's not pretend we're surprised. Britain's approach to net zero is the same as a teenager's approach to cleaning their room: a lot of frantic shuffling when the door opens, followed by a period of utter inertia until the next shouting match.
And so we drift on, a nation of drivers squinting at their range anxiety, a government fiddling with targets while the planet simmers, and a public that just wants to get to work without having to sit in a traffic jam while plugged into a lamp post. The real tragedy is that the 22% target is still too high for the infrastructure we have, but too low for the climate crisis we face. It's the goldilocks of incompetence, the sweet spot of mediocrity that satisfies nobody while allowing everyone to claim victory. The headlines will say 'Government U-turn', but the real story is that we've all, collectively, decided that the future can wait until after the next election. Preferably in a car that still smells of petrol.
