British Sports Car Brands Won’t Have To Build EVs Until 2035

The UK government’s ZEV mandate, which decrees that car manufacturers have to sell a certain percentage of EVs between now and the planned phase-out of new internal combustion sales in 2035, has caused a bit of uncertainty for the British car industry for a while now.

Today, though, largely in response to the tariffs introduced by a certain US President, the British government has announced a host of changes to the mandate that should help ease some of that uncertainty. Of most interest to us is that, until 2035, “small and micro-volume manufacturers” are to be exempt altogether from needing to sell a certain number of electrified cars.

Aston Martin and McLaren are specifically namechecked in the government’s press release, but the exemption extends to any company producing fewer than 2500 cars per year. This also means companies like Morgan, Caterham, and Gordon Murray Automotive won’t be obliged to build any hybrid or fully electric cars until 2035.

The ZEV mandate has also been tweaked in some other areas, too: While pure combustion cars from mass-market manufacturers are still set to be phased out in 2030, the government has confirmed that hybrids of both the plug-in and ‘self-charging’ variety can remain on sale beyond this date. Pure combustion vans, meanwhile, can also stay on sale right up until the 2035 cutoff.

Elsewhere, the government has extended a couple of existing workarounds for the mandate. One allows manufacturers to offset missed sales targets by exceeding targets in CO2 reduction, and another allows them to borrow sales ‘credits’ from future years, essentially meaning they can miss targets one year if they exceed them the next. The former has now been extended to 2029 and the latter to 2030.

Finally, the penalty for missing EV sales targets has been reduced from £15,000 to £12,000 per car. One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is the UK’s plan to end sales of anything other than full EVs entirely from 2035.

Amid currently fluctuating EV demand, the changes to the mandate should hopefully provide a little more security for manufacturers as they navigate odther trade challenges. More importantly, from an enthusiast perspective, though, it means we’ve still got a while yet to enjoy glorious combustion-powered British sports cars.