The maddest, baddest, saddest week of the year so far? Possibly the one we’ve just endured.
The madness came courtesy of the UK Government and its summit meeting with motor industry chiefs. Up for discussion were mega-important matters such as the ZEV mandate, job losses, the threatened 2030 ban on new ICE cars, plans for electric cars to succeed them and, in turn, the future and rapidly changing shape of mass manufacturing at major factories still building vehicles in Britain. UK car industry life-savers such as BMW/MINI, Land Rover, Nissan and Toyota, we salute you.
With all this and more on the agenda, and so much at stake, surely Prime Minister Starmer and/or Net Zero Minister Miliband should have taken the lead? Instead, the recently sacked Transport Secretary Haigh (famous for further subsidising trains and buses) was wheeled in over the potholes to lead the negotiations, assisted by Business Minister Reynolds. Nissan seemed unimpressed and said the ZEV mandate “risks undermining the business case for manufacturing cars in the UK”. Haigh and her Government need to take that as an official and serious written warning.
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