The price of ICE cars in the UK will increase if the government’s electric car sales targets aren't redrawn, Volkswagen’s head of sales has warned.
Martin Sander said that immense discounting on EVs by manufacturers in order to boost demand and comply with the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate is unsustainable.
Last year, the average discount on a new EV was £11,000, as car makers offered a collective £10 billion in discounts to UK buyers, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).
Manufacturers are offering discounts to drive EV sales and thereby avoid being hit by a £12,000 fine for each ICE car sold over the mandated EV sales mix target. For 2026, that target is 33% of total registrations, and it will incrementally rise to 80% by 2030.
However, this discounting will result in increased ICE car prices as manufacturers look to recapture lost profits, Sander warned on Thursday at the SMMT’s Electrified conference in London.
“I believe that the cost of individual [ICE] transportation will go up significantly, because I can't believe that by 2030 there will be natural demand that takes us to 80% electric vehicles - because prices [of EVs] and costs [of parts and public charging] are still too high,” he said.
“So we are unable to offer [EVs] at the same price level as vehicles with combustion engines – not today, not three or four years from now. And there is a limit to how much we as the car industry are willing and capable to incentivise electric vehicles to get to a certain [target] number. And if we have to get to 80% [electric], this will not only happen by incentivising even more, but if we do that the cost of ICE vehicles will go up.”
Sander (pictured below) also warned that when the mandated EV limit is reached, discounting will stop and prices for EVs will rise rapidly.
The pot for discounting is also “not bottomless”, Volvo UK boss Nicole Melillo Shaw warned at the same event.
She said: “We have invested so much to make sure that we're on this [EV] journey. The cost of that, the tech, all of that was done years ago, so now we're at the peak of our investment curve. [The market is also] hyper-competitive, so spending more [via discounts] just to stand still, that can’t go on.
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Lots of ignoring the elephants in the room.
EV's use more resources to make compared to equivalent ICE car. They use far more precious earth minerals in them.
You are more 'dealership bound' with an EV as there's precious little that traditional garages/mechanics can fix on them outside of tyres, windows etc.
When the batteries go they are mainly sent to Asia to recycle. The carbon footprint of that alone isn't very environment friendly. Then of course there's the recycling which is often done by women and kids because they have smaller nimble fingers to do the work. All those chemicals end up making them ill, lifelong diseases and shortened lifespan. Lovely so you can sit there with your manbun saying how eco friendly you are while ignoring the trail of destruction of people in Asia recycling your filth.
Oh and then there's the massive resource use to put in infrastructure here for charging and all these spaces being used for charging stations that could be used for something else as well. Not exactly best use of resources or space.
Also notice increased damage to roads over the last few years. The amount of potholes. Correlated to the increased use of EVs which weigh on average 50% more than equivalent ICE vehicles.
You can keep your EVs thanks very much. In fact, instead of discounts it's time to put a massive tax on them to pay for all the environmental damage they cause.
What benefits? only to save tax they are a curse in evey way only making inroads due to the Chinease having no oil but plenty of polluting coal to fue lhundreds of extra power stations, they ar edamaging the planet breakeven is 90000 mile sin Europe and 120000 miles China according to a Ppolestar study in what car a few years ago so that would have been a wee bit biased in Ev 's favour