Car industry body the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has come out strongly against the government’s zero emission vehicle mandate, saying that the whole thing needs to be rethought. 

In an unprecedented statement of dissatisfaction with the current regulatory framework that’s been imposed on the carmakers (having to sell electric cars), the association that represents the UK car industry is calling for the government to reassess the whole thing. 

The SMMT is keen to emphasise that the car industry is still committed to net zero, it just doesn’t want to have to suffer to get there. 

It says that despite the UK having one of the largest EV shares of any major European market, and consumers ‘enjoying a massive choice of more than 160 BEV models’, the country is still lagging behind its own commitments to ramping up EV sales. In 2025 EVs accounted for 23.4% of new car registrations, below the 28% requirement by the ZEV mandate.

According to the SMMT the assumptions that were made when predicting the uptake of electric vehicles were all wrong and need to be worked out again, the charging infrastructure requirements haven’t kept space with sales, battery costs are 30% higher than anyone predicted and the geopolitical landscape has shifted. 

The extraordinary intervention came at the beginning of the SMMT’s ‘Electrified’ conference, where it celebrates the latest in zero emission developments, though you’d have to imagine a slightly muted atmosphere in the context of the UK car industry’s latest complaints. 

SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes called for an ‘urgent review’ of the car industry’s zero emission obligations. “A landscape which once looked solid has turned out to be quicksand. Recognising the world of 2026 is not the one envisaged five years ago is not a retreat from ambition; it is a necessary step to achieving it. We need an urgent review that reflects today’s realities, that delivers decarbonisation not deindustrialisation and offers consumers the choice they have always expected.”