It was interesting listening to MG last week, talking about the “brutal” level of discounting going on in the new-car market.
That’s potentially great for consumers, with the deals that will be available as makers scrabble to hit Zero-Emission Vehicle targets that seem increasingly not fit for purpose. But if the controversial ZEV mandate is not actually driving change and helping people willingly make the move into electric cars, then it’s just a penalty on doing business.
I saw some sales figures last week that made for shocking reading about who is buying electric cars. Both the private and fleet markets are fairly static this year compared with 2023, which isn’t great when the fleet sector has traditionally blazed a trail on EVs thanks to the company-car tax incentives.
But the Motability sector – which provides 800,000 disabled people with access to cars – has more than doubled in size in 12 months. Sounds great in principle, but that part of the market is notorious as one where manufacturers push cars they want to get rid of, potentially at big discounts.
The other massive growth area for EVs this year is equally worrying: dealer demonstrator cars. They’re not ‘real’ demo vehicles, though, but cars registered because it’s cheaper for manufacturers to lose money on models that count towards their ZEV mandate quota than it is to pay the fines that will otherwise ensue. Some of the pricing out there is pretty wild, on new EVs in particular.
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