Currently reading: Why car buyers will be the ones paying for ZEV fines

Prior riffs on the tricks of marketing and why the ZEV mandate sounds more like a carbon tax on the customer

What an ingenious idea it was to call an airport car park ‘business parking’, as they do at Heathrow.

It’s nearer the terminal than the regular long-stay parking and has small but more frequent shuttles, so it’s more convenient and therefore more expensive.

Yet hundreds of thousands of people flying for work each year will have no qualms about submitting expenses receipts from a facility seemingly designed precisely for them. Imagine if it had been called ‘luxury parking’.

All of those people headed to meetings, site visits and conferences might think twice about using it, because what might the finance department think of a middle-ranking account manager presuming to use a ‘luxury’ facility? ‘Business’ pitches it perfectly: if you’re travelling for work, steer this way.

From a marketing perspective, what one calls things is of course vitally important. But it’s a trick that can be used if not to deceive then at least to add a little vagueness, some sleight of hand, to any manner of things.

As I write (albeit not necessarily as you read, depending on who ticks which boxes this week), it’s the UK government’s intent to fine car manufacturers that don’t sell a sufficient proportion of zero-emission vehicles.

The requirement is 22% ZEVs this year, more in the future, although there is a complex algorithm that allows trading between manufacturers, offsetting against future model introductions and so on. But ultimately the cost is £15,000 for every car on which a manufacturer falls short.

Most mainstream manufacturers say they won’t countenance paying it and are setting up their model ranges to suit, often modifying the number of cars that they will produce or import.

Calling it a fine very much makes it feel like the onus is placed on the manufacturers, that it’s their responsibility to comply.

Clearly, the ZEV mandate will shift the market. But there might be cases where it doesn’t. I’ve heard a couple of rumblings from manufacturers that could consider the fine acceptable. Say one that just about ticks its 22% (or whatever) box but still has demand for certain ICE models.

There is, of course, a way that such cars could be available to you: by becoming up to £15,000 more expensive, to cover the fine, or whatever proportion of it would cause the manufacturer to fall short of the regulations. The manufacturer can’t be reasonably expected to pay it, but for the right car, maybe the customer would.

Given that it’s not the manufacturer that will be paying the extra, then, and was probably never going to be, is it really still a fine on the manufacturer? Because at that point it sounds more like a carbon tax on the customer to me.

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And perhaps that’s okay, if that’s what we’re calling it? The idea of a carbon tax is never very far away from some party policies. It’s even in some manifestos.

Many people accept them in principle, but the problem with this one is how extreme it is. Nowhere else would you find a carbon tax at this level, in addition to the duties on fuel, which already exist for this purpose.

Have a huge house, a hot tub, a dog, a log burner or many other things that are luxuries and you will pay not a bean in carbon taxation. (I’m not saying that’s right or wrong; I’m just saying how it is.) Yet if you need a car with an engine because your way of making your family’s money depends on it, perhaps you will pay – and it will be a sky-high amount.

Which is why, I imagine, it was dubbed a manufacturer fine in the first place, rather than what will actually end up being: a consumer carbon tax. So let’s call it what it is, compare it with other carbon taxes, then see how it goes down. About as well as an expenses claim for ‘luxury parking’ would be my guess.

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Matt Prior

Matt Prior
Title: Editor-at-large

Matt is Autocar’s lead features writer and presenter, is the main face of Autocar’s YouTube channel, presents the My Week In Cars podcast and has written his weekly column, Tester’s Notes, since 2013.

Matt is an automotive engineer who has been writing and talking about cars since 1997. He joined Autocar in 2005 as deputy road test editor, prior to which he was road test editor and world rally editor for Channel 4’s automotive website, 4Car. 

Into all things engineering and automotive from any era, Matt is as comfortable regularly contributing to sibling titles Move Electric and Classic & Sports Car as he is writing for Autocar. He has a racing licence, and some malfunctioning classic cars and motorbikes. 

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Swimming 7 July 2024
It is not a tax, it is a fine for not meeting a minimum and reasonable standard. Manufacturers have a choice if they pay or not. Manufacturers who are selling decent and reasonably priced EVs, like Hyundai and Volvo will easily meet the standard.

40k annual deaths in the UK from air pollution. Man-made climate change is real, despite what the oil industry and tinfoil hat brigade says. It is right that the UK demand that some zero emission vehicles. We have to pick up the tab for NHS asthma and lung disease costs after all

Anwar Smyth 7 July 2024

However, it's a 'TAX' you have the choice wether to pay or not.if you buy from a manufacturer that meets the ZEV conditions they will be cheaper than those who have failed their customers.

ricequackers 6 July 2024

It's a very communist style of regulation - quite literally, since the state is centrally planning how many cars and for what price they should be sold at rather than allowing the market to decide what kind of car they want to buy. The real plan of course has nothing to do with emissions or the environment and is really about pricing the peons out of cars and onto woeful public transport to make them more dependent on the state.

And that goes for both sides of the uniparty, all of them are in hock to the technocratic globalist agenda. All of them hellbent on robbing even more of the wealth of the working and middle classes for themselves.

Swimming 7 July 2024
Hi, are you aware that the phrase "globalist agenda" has a long history of being antisemitic? Populist politicians will always try to convince you that there is an enemy out there that we need to fight against. Jews, immigrants, the EU, etc. It's why in the book 1984 there is always a war on, why north Korean leaders say the USA is always about to invade. There is no globalist agenda.

This is in no way communist. All governments support and regulate industries. The oil industry has received billions. Car companies are causing air pollution which causes health conditions that are expensive to treat, it's fair enough that they pay for it.

ricequackers 7 July 2024

Nothing to do with Jews, it's billionaires, politicians and "policy experts" all coming together to decide on policy rather than countries deciding through democratic means. The result of all these policy decisions is invariably large-scale wealth transfer from the poor to the rich, or at least it always seems to conveniently work like that.

And pre-ordaining production targets is literally how centrally planned economies work. They'd always miss the mark as they couldn't quite match customer demand, which meant excess supply or shortages. The government can demand 20% be EVs, but manufacturers can't hit the mark unless the demand for them is actually there, which evidently there isn't.

Finally, "they" don't pay for it, "we" do, in the form of massively higher prices for cars that have the effect of pricing out car ownership for many. An effect that again seems a little too convenient for those setting the rules; rules that we don't seem to have any control or influence over.