The UK’s transition to electric vehicles has just passed its first big test.
The Department for Transport has today published its first-ever compliance report for the Vehicle Emissions Trading Scheme (VETS), the regulatory system that underpins the UK’s Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate.
Not only does this highlight the UK Government’s love for acronyms, it also shows that carmakers collectively beat their EV sales targets. That meant nobody paid was slapped with any fines.
In 2024, the ZEV mandate required 22% of new sales to be zero emission and carmakers delivered an effective compliance level of 24.3%, comfortably exceeding the target. The van market also beat its goal, reaching 11.5% compliance against a 10% target.
One reason for this is that the scheme has been designed with built-in flexibility. As well as selling electric vehicles, manufacturers can also use several mechanisms to meet their targets, including earning credits for low CO₂ vehicles, trading credits with other manufacturers, banking excess credits for future years or borrowing slightly from future targets. In practice, most manufacturers used a combination of these options.
In the car market, around 19.8% of new vehicles sold in 2024 were fully electric. Additional CO₂ credits added the equivalent of another 4.7 percentage points, bringing the market comfortably above the required level.
There was also some trading between manufacturers through the Car Registration Trading Scheme, with around 39,000 credits (2.1% of the total market) traded for around £4,000 each, which is far cheaper than the £12,000 fine manufacturers would have faced for missing the EV target.
The van market followed a similar pattern. Only 6.8% of new vans registered in 2024 were electric, but CO₂-related credits lifted the effective figure to around 12%, again comfortably above the 10% target.
While the results demonstrate that the ZEV mandate is working as intended, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has already pushed back, saying that across 2024 and 2025, the collective cost of hitting these targets was more than £10 billion. In today’s AMMT Electrified event, Mike Hawes also stating that assumptions around the EV transition have proved “over ambitious”. Meanwhile, Transport Minister Keir Mather says EV commitment is “iron clad”.
Daniel Kunkel, CEO of GRIDSERVE, said: “The UK’s transition to electric vehicles represents one of the most important opportunities to strengthen the country’s energy security, improve long-term affordability for drivers and deliver meaningful progress on decarbonisation.
Importantly, consumers are already embracing electric mobility. One in four new vehicles registered last year was fully electric, and once drivers make the switch they rarely go back. At the same time, choice and affordability continue to improve, with a growing number of models available at lower price points and a rapidly strengthening used EV market.
Maintaining a stable and predictable policy environment will be critical to sustaining this progress. Clear signals such as the ZEV Mandate help give investors, carmakers and infrastructure providers the confidence to continue delivering.
At GRIDSERVE, we remain strongly committed to working collaboratively with industry and government to accelerate the transition to electric transport in a way that supports consumers, investment and the UK’s broader economic and energy ambitions.”
