Car makers are hitting back at 'vocal anti-EV campaign' with facts

"Misinformation" is what the recent House of Lords report on the UK’s bungled EV strategy called some of the mainstream media reporting about electric cars. “Several witnesses told us that media coverage of EVs was inaccurate and portrayed EVs in a disproportionately negative light - noting that even when corrected, fact checks often do not reach as wide an audience as the original article,” it read. The report highlighted articles from the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and The Telegraph as examples of this and quoted Ford as saying a “vocal anti-EV campaign” had emerged in early 2023. The boss of the UK’s biggest-selling car maker, the Volkswagen Group, isn't one for such statements. Alex Smith has instead said that such reporting simply makes him more determined to counter such reporting with facts. “If I read something which is obviously misleading, then it just makes me and the team here even more determined to ensure that we provide great information and products to consumers,” he told me in the VW Group’s UK boardroom on the day the Lords’ report was published. Smith is feeling buoyed by the VW Group’s progress in selling EVs – something that it, like all car makers, has to do in increasing numbers in 2024 after the introduction of the ZEV mandate, which dictates that 22% of any car maker’s UK sales must be electric. While EV sales grew 18% across the total market in 2023, at VW Group, the growth was closer to 50%. “There has been massive media coverage on electric vehicles from many different angles, but it all comes back to compelling products,” Smith said. “If you have them and have compelling and constant new products, then there is the consumer interest.” Still, Smith believes that incentives are needed to further stimulate demand and also called for binding targets for the infrastructure rollout to be set in the same way that car makers have been in the government dictating the amount of EVs car makers must grow each year. Intriguingly, Smith said the ZEV mandate itself would be reviewed in a couple of years, leaving the door open to a softening of the sliding scale of EV sales. At present, firms must get to 80% by 2030 and 100% by 2035. “We know that there is provision for review of the zero emission [vehicle] mandate in a couple of years' time," he said. "This will allow everybody to take stock and then figure out exactly what might be necessary in order to continue to drive the transition in the second half of the decade.” That’s assuming we even have the current status quo by then; with a general election due within the 12 months, Smith simply pleads for “consistency” for the automotive industry from whoever is in power. Every VW Group brand grew its market share in the UK in 2023 as the firm put the semiconductor chip shortage behind it and more typical lead times returning, including cars in stock. Volkswagen itself retained its number-one position in the sales charts, while Audi and Skoda posted record shares. In total, VW Group sales volumes grew by 106,000 cars in 2023 over 2022 – a total that self-confessed numbers buff Smith calculated would stretch from his home in Oxford to his daughter’s university in Exeter and back on his way to pick her up over Christmas. VW Group’s early electric cars had well-publicised software problems, but Smith said there had been “positive response to the latest version of software” and an overwhelming majority of EV buyers would not be going back to ICE cars, even after any rocky experiences. Smith himself is an EV owner: he made the switch in 2019 with an Audi E-tron and currently drives a Cupra Born. And he can’t remember the last time he needed to borrow an ICE car with a particularly long journey in mind. When out and about, he will talk to anyone who asks about the benefits of EVs as part of “education without sounding incredibly patronising” - but he doesn’t think it should solely be down to EV owners and car companies to do so. “Increasing consumer familiarity with the reality of electric vehicles has a really important part to play," he said. "But we’re not the only people who need to coordinate, to take a lead and to send clear, educative messages. “What’s really important about education is that it needs to be objective, freely available and digestible in a way that isn’t directive or patronising.”