IS THE UK PREPARED FOR AN EV REVOLUTION?

THE UK car industry has weathered several storms in recent years, with Brexit uncertainty causing significant difficulties, and Covid-19 closing dealerships and factories. But with a free-trade agreement with the EU now in place for cars, and the UK’s vaccine rollout well under way, things – while some way off being ‘normal’ – are more optimistic than they have been in recent times.

The future brings more challenges, though. The Government’s confirmation in November last year that sales of new cars without significant electrification would be banned in 2030, before new internal-combustion-engined vehicles are outlawed entirely in 2035, sets a high bar for the automotive industry, not to mention car buyers.

While we have a Brexit deal that’s largely favourable to the automotive industry, strict rules-of-origin legislation means that by 2027, at least 55 per cent of an electric car must be built in the UK or EU in order for the vehicle to remain exempt from import or export tariffs. Given that batteries and motors tend to comprise a huge proportion of an EV’s value, and these components are typically made outside the UK and EU, the race