The car industry is accelerating towards an electric future

Back in November, when Downing Street’s pandemic responses looked daily more incompetent, the announcement of a ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030, ten years earlier than originally planned, was largely greeted — along with the rest of the ‘Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution’ — as another exercise in Johnsonian distraction and thin-air number-plucking. Auto makers responded defensively, citing the huge costs of re-engineering model ranges in short order and the shameful failure of ministers to encourage investment in plug-in networks for electric vehicles. Meanwhile, Tesla founder Elon Musk announced he would site a battery ‘gigafactory’ in Germany because Brexit made the UK ‘too risky’.

Fast-forward three months and sense the change. The PM looks almost masterly as he rides the vaccine wave, while the auto industry performs competitive pivots to embrace its electric future. Ford will stop making carbon-fuelled cars by 2030; Jaguar Land Rover and Bentley will have fully electric ranges.