Reports point to a 60% electric target for 2030, and nothing is settled

The 2030 electric car target is the number that decides how much a manufacturer pays to keep selling petrol cars in Britain, and this evening it exists as a report rather than a decision. Fleet News reported on 19 October that the government is considering cutting the target as part of its zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate review, with carmakers asking for 50% of sales to be electric by 2030 and ministers leaning towards 60%. The current requirement is 80%.

Two things need keeping apart. The first is what is being discussed. The second is what the law requires today, which has not changed, and which is what every car sold this month is measured against.

What is being reported

Fleet News, reporting the Financial Times, says the business department had been eager to cut the 2030 figure while the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero wants a higher target to keep the country on course for its climate commitments. The same report says the ban on new petrol and diesel-only cars would remain from 2030, and that hybrids fill the share of sales the current 80% target leaves non-electric.

The 50% and 60% figures are reported positions inside a review, not published policy. No government document sets either number out, and no announcement has been made. That distinction is doing a lot of work in the coverage, because a target under discussion and a target in force are different things for anyone ordering a car, quoting a lease or planning a model line-up.

The target as it stands

The mandate is a rising ladder of annual shares rather than a single number. Fleet News sets out the current car trajectory: 33% this year, 38% in 2027, 52% in 2028, 66% in 2029, 80% in 2030 and 100% by 2035. Vans follow a separate and lower path, at 24% this year rising to 70% by 2030 before the same 2035 endpoint.

The penalty for missing is £12,000 per car and £15,000 per van, after the government cut those fines by £3,000 last year. There are compliance flexibilities that let manufacturers trade credits and bank overperformance, which we looked at in our explainer on how the credits work, and they matter to how the ladder bites in practice. They do not change the headline share the law asks for.

What September actually delivered

The most recent hard number is September's, and it cuts both ways. The SMMT recorded 99,201 battery electric registrations, up 36.3% and a 28.3% share of the month, with plug-in hybrids up 55.5% to a record 17.0% share. That is the strongest electric month the UK has had.

The year is the problem. Those 99,201 cars took the nine-month total to 454,947, which is 26.2% of the 1,739,271 cars registered so far, against the 33% the mandate requires this year. On its own outlook of a 2.183 million market, the SMMT puts the shortfall at roughly 265,000 additional electric cars needed in the final quarter alone.

We worked through what that implies for the final quarter in our piece on the September figures. The short version is that the required volume is not far above what September managed. The difficulty is fitting it into a smaller base, because October to December is a lower-volume period than a plate-change month.

The gap between 60 and 80

The distance between the two reported positions is easier to see in cars than in percentages. On a two-million-car year, 20 percentage points is 400,000 vehicles that would not have to be electric. That is roughly four times September's entire battery electric volume, and September was a record.

That arithmetic is ours, worked from the reported figures rather than printed anywhere, and it is a crude measure. A 60% target would still be a steep climb from the 26.2% the year is running at. The annual ladder between now and 2030 would have to be redrawn to get there, which the reports do not address. What a lower 2030 number would mean for the interim years, and for vans, is unidentified in the coverage so far.

There is a business argument on the other side of it. Mike Hawes, the SMMT's chief executive, has said the UK still has the world's toughest targets and highest energy costs, and the society has framed the review as a chance to align regulation more closely with market development. Manufacturers including Nissan have tied investment decisions to the outcome, as we reported when Nissan put £170m into Sunderland.

What the consultation is for

The formal process is still open. The Department for Transport launched the ZEV mandate review on 14 August, and the consultation closes at 11:59pm on Friday 23 October. It is structured in five parts, covering the mandate's impact so far, emerging issues, policy options, the carbon impact of those options, and the definition of the 2030 phase-out for cars that rely solely on internal combustion engines.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander set out the government's position at launch: "It's right we keep targets under review to ensure they're practical and back British industry. The end goal hasn't changed, but we need to take business with us on the journey and that's exactly what we're doing today by making sure industry has the chance to shape how we get there."

That is a statement about process, and it is the only on-the-record government position available. It does not confirm either reported number.

What drivers think

Public opinion is not settled either. Fleet News cites research by Venson Automotive Solutions finding that 42% of drivers think the 2035 phase-out date should be maintained and 41% think it should not. A one-point split on a question framed around a date nine years away is not a mandate for anything, and it is worth treating as a signal that the argument is live rather than as evidence of a direction.

What happens next

Nothing is scheduled. The consultation closes on Friday, a government response follows in due course, and any new target has to be written into the Vehicle Emissions Trading Schemes Order before it binds a manufacturer. The mandate lives in that instrument, which is why the review exists at all.

For anyone choosing a car this month, none of this changes what is on a forecourt. The grant, the benefit in kind rates and the price of the car in front of you are the numbers that decide the purchase, and we have looked at what the grant is worth now and at how company car tax treats an electric car. The 2030 target has never been a household calculation. It is a calculation about what manufacturers choose to build and bring here, and that is why a report of a 60% figure matters more than it sounds.

What it is not is a decision. The 80% figure is still the law until something replaces it, and the only fixed date in the diary is Friday.