The UK government is preparing to water down its electric vehicle sales targets. Under the existing zero emission vehicles (ZEV) mandate, 80% of all new cars sold in Britain needed to be electric vehicles (EVs) by 2030.

Following sustained lobbying from car manufacturers and trade unions, that figure could be revised down to somewhere between 50% and 70%.

While this shift may be described as a pragmatic response to market realities, the rationale for altering EV targets deserves closer scrutiny. There are four key reasons EV targets shouldn’t be weakened.

1. Risk of repeating the industry’s past mistakes

Lobbying tends to make immediate, tangible costs (the £10 billion in discounts, potential job losses) feel more urgent than long-term benefits like minimising climate impacts. But the lobby may overstate these costs.

This framing is not always ideal. The US automobile industry lobbied for decades against tightening Corporate Average Fuel Economy (Cafe) standards meant to improve fuel efficiency, successfully keeping them weak through to the 2000s. The industry argued that consumers didn’t want fuel-efficient cars and that tighter standards would cost jobs.

As a result, US car manufacturers, such as GM and Chrysler, became dependent........

© The Conversation