Car makers beat their electric car sales targets in 2024, the first year of the UK's ZEV mandate, according to new figures released by the Department for Transport (DfT).

As a whole the industry hit a 19.8% EV mix against a target of 22% but added the equivalent of an additional 4.7% through CO2 credits on the Vehicle Emissions Trading Scheme (VETS), taking the total to an equivalent of 24.1%.

This overachievement enabled manufacturers to bank EV credits for future years, in which the EV target will become increasingly higher.

It also meant credits could be traded between manufacturers under the Car Registration Trading Scheme (CRTS). 

On top of this, some manufacturers 'forward-borrowed' 1.2% worth of EV registrations in order to avoid fines.

The DfT revealed that EV credit trading prices were running at a much lower cost than £12,000 per-car fine that the government would impose for failure to reach the EV target. 

Around 39,000 CRTS allowances were traded between manufacturers – equivalent to 2.1% of the total market in 2024 – at an average of approximately £4000 each.

It was a similar story in the van market: while only 6.8% of new LCVs registered in 2024 were electric, CO2-related reductions boosted the figure by 5.3% to 12.0%, against a 10% mandated target.

A further 0.2% was forward-borrowed by van makers against future targets.

In the van market, only 200 credits were traded at “substantially less than their respective compliance costs”, according to the DfT, with manufacturers preferring to bank their excess credits rather than sell them.

The fines associated with vans are more punitive than for cars, at £15,000 per vehicle over the permitted total.

Since the introduction of the ZEV mandate, manufacturers have fought to have the targets and fines watered down, claiming the cost of meeting them isn't sustainable.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has said that across 2024 and 2025, the collective cost of hitting the targets was more than £10 billion.

The government has stated it will start a review of the ZEV mandate later this year, with the results to be published in the first half of 2027, but it will surely see the 2024 figures as a vindication of its system to ensure its net-zero goals are achieved.

The industry has already started to push back, though, citing the financial unsustainability of heavily discounting an increasing proportion of vehicles to artificially drive EV demand.

The latest figures are already a year old and were achieved before a revision to the ZEV mandate that lowered the fine level from £15,000 to £12,000 per car.

The revised regulations also mean credits can be traded between cars and vans, and all credits can now be banked until 2029; originally this allowance was due to end this year.

Tristan Young