In an exclusive article for Transport + Energy, Dr. Andy Palmer, who launched the Nissan Leaf and is a leading voice in the electric vehicle industry, responds to rumours about the ZEV Mandate being further weakened.
If reports are correct that Keir Starmer is preparing to dilute the ZEV Mandate to a 50% EV penetration target by 2030, it represents something more troubling than a policy adjustment. It is another sign of a government drifting from conviction to populism.
The UK was once genuinely admired for policy consistency. Investors could make long-term capital decisions with reasonable confidence that the regulatory framework would hold. Today, we appear to be executing more U-turns than a London taxi.
Whether you support electrification or not is almost beside the point. The ZEV Mandate created certainty. It gave global automotive companies the confidence to commit capital, technology and jobs to the UK. Nissan’s investment in new LEAF and Juke EV production at Sunderland, Chery’s UK ambitions, battery projects in Sunderland and Somerset, and billions of pounds in supply-chain commitments were all made against the backdrop of a clear regulatory trajectory.
That clarity was not incidental to those decisions. It was the condition for them.
When governments repeatedly change direction, investors begin asking a simple question: why should we trust the UK?
The damage extends well beyond vehicle manufacturing. Charging infrastructure providers, battery suppliers, energy companies, software developers and skills providers have all invested on the basis of expectations created by government policy. Every retreat from those commitments casts future investment into doubt, not just in this sector, but across the wider industrial landscape.
The deeper strategic issue concerns the UK’s position within Europe’s emerging industrial ecosystem. If the EU increasingly moves to localise battery, vehicle and clean technology supply chains under a “Made in Europe” framework, the UK’s greatest risk is not that the transition happens too quickly. It is that it happens elsewhere, and we are not part of it.
I spent years working at the intersection of automotive strategy and industrial policy, at Nissan, where I was Chief Operating Officer, Chief of Planning, led LEAF, founder AESC, led Infiniti, and later as CEO of Aston Martin. The consistent lesson is that businesses can adapt to tough targets. What they cannot adapt to is uncertainty. Targets create plans. Uncertainty creates paralysis.
Whatever your view on electric vehicles, a country cannot build a world-class manufacturing sector if its industrial strategy shifts every time the political weather does. Conviction is not a luxury of good times. It is the foundation of long-term industrial competitiveness.
Dr Andy Palmer CMG is a chartered engineer and automotive executive. Having served in leadership positions at both Nissan and Aston Martin, Andy has led transformational change at two of the world’s most recognisable businesses in the industry.
Today, Palmer is the CEO and Founder of Palmer Energy and serves on the boards of a number of high-innovation businesses in the net zero space.
