The Government’s plan to force electric cars upon the masses is, predictably, unravelling. Industry leaders, those harried souls who must actually sell these expensive, range-anxious chariots, have finally cried enough. The mandate, which demanded that 22% of new car sales be electric this year, is set to be weakened.
Why? Because the public, in their stubborn, petrol-headed way, refuse to play along. Sales are flatlining.
Charging infrastructure remains a joke. The zero-emission vehicle mandate, that grand bureaucratic edict, was always a fantasy. It presumed that you could legislate consumer desire, that you could browbeat people into abandoning the internal combustion engine with fines and quotas.
The Victorians knew better. They built the railways not by decree but by responding to demand. They understood that progress is organic, not imposed.
Today’s mandarins, however, prefer the Soviet approach: set a target, ignore reality, and blame the consumer for not complying. The weakening of the target is a belated admission that the green transition cannot be forced. It must be earned.
And so far, the electric car has not earned it. The range is inadequate, the price is prohibitive, and the charging network is a patchwork of broken terminals and queuing Teslas. The industry is right to demand realism.
But realism means accepting that the 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel cars is a fantasy too. It will be delayed, watered down, or quietly abandoned. The Fall of Rome was not a single event; it was a series of compromises with reality.
So too with Britain’s electric car dream. The mandate will be softened. Then the ban will be postponed.
Then, perhaps, we will admit that the internal combustion engine has a future after all, albeit a cleaner one. Until then, enjoy the show. Watch as the bureaucratic machine grinds against human nature.
It will not end well for the bureaucrats.
