SMMT (Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders) boss Mike Hawes has used a weekly email to supporters of the organisation to double down on his claims that the UK government’s targets for EV sales need urgent change.
Despite record proportions of new car sales being electric, the SMMT says that demand from buyers is being artificially propped up by incentives and discounts that are hurting the industry.
Just incidentally our regular reminder that the SMMT’s biggest and most influential members are those carmakers who manufacture in the UK – Jaguar Land Rover, which doesn’t have any EVs on sale at all; Toyota, which has a large factory making hybrid petrol engines; Nissan, which despite being one of the first carmakers to bring out a mass market EV has managed to sell hardly any of them so far in 2026; and BMW, whose only electric model built in the UK is the Rolls-Royce Spectre.
Hawes said in his weekly CEO Update email that critics of car industry calls for a watering down of EV targets don’t understand the market like carmakers and dealers do, saying they are “detached from the commercial realities of building and selling vehicles”.
Which rather sounds like it can be extrapolated that the representative of the car industry is saying that people who build petrol and diesel engines are the only ones with valid opinions on air quality and climate change.
Hawes said that the record sales of EVs in the UK “do not mean this is a market transforming of its own accord” and that “suggesting this proves the ZEV mandate is ‘working’ ignores the reality facing those expected to deliver it.” (What is the ZEV mandate? Check out our explainer...)
The SMMT CEO said that a number of surveys had put ‘real’ demand for EVs at around 10–13% of the market, which seems to suggest that more than half of electric car drivers don’t want to be in them.
He also complained about “billions being spent on discounts, finance incentives and marketing support to stimulate demand beyond its natural level,” calling for urgent reform of the ZEV mandate.
Hawes also put some of the blame for the current situation on charge companies, a move which Gridserve CEO Daniel Kunkel recently said was “not constructive”, with manufacturers making a lot of "noise" about the mandate, which he believes should be kept in place as it is.
He made the comments at the opening of Gridserve's flagship charge hub, which just opened on the M1.
“Infrastructure has improved but not fast or evenly enough,” said Mike Hawes, “with just one public charger for every 40-plus plug-in cars in the southeast and northwest compared with one for every nine in London.” Charge points too are reaching record numbers, the UK passing the 120,000 mark in May.
Hawes made a final plea at the end of his weekly email for all comers to work together to “ensure a just transition”, claiming that watering down the ZEV mandate was somehow necessary to ensure the transition to zero emission vehicles.
