Seven in 10 car dealers say that not enough is being done to support the transition of electric vehicles (EVs) and half of those believe the Government is to blame.
The findings come from the latest Startline Used Car Tracker, which revealed that only 7% of dealer think car manufacturers are to blame for a lack of EV uptake.
Paul Burgess, CEO at Startline Motor Finance, said: “Electrification is the single biggest change to motor manufacturing that any of us are likely to see in our lifetimes and is having a fundamental effect on how and where manufacturers make cars.
“Motor manufacturing remains a cornerstone of the UK economy but there is clearly a general perception among dealers that not enough is being done to ensure that we preserve the base that we have, never mind look to expand it.
“Brexit is clearly an issue here, having made the UK simply a more difficult place for major manufacturers to make vehicles, but there also appears to be little in the way of an industrial strategy to convince car makers that this remains a great place to have factories.
“If you look across our volume manufacturing base, only Nissan and Stellantis have fully committed to making electric vehicles here while bad news isn’t difficult to find, notably with the recent loss of Ford research and development jobs.”
The key issue, say 40% of dealers, is that not enough battery manufacturing capacity is being created while 31% report that sufficient consumer demand for EVs just doesn’t yet exist.
Britishvolt entered administration at the start of 2023 after running out of funds to proceed with its plans for a gigafactory in Blyth, Northumberland. The Government withheld funding from the business for failure to meet pre-agreed targets. Britishvolt was subsequently acquired by Australian start-up Recharge Industries.
The new buyer, trading as Recharge Production UK Limited, is expected to revive the fortunes of Britishvolt.
Burgess added: “Having battery gigafactories is going to be essential for local EV manufacturing and the BritishVolt situation has done little to convince sceptical dealers that enough is being done to create the UK supply that car makers would need.”
Hugo Griffiths, consumer editor at carwow, argues that it might be time for the UK Government to ease-off on plans to ban all non zero emissions capable new cars from 2030 in AM's latest 'guest opinion' post.
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