MYTH BUSTER

"WE'RE BEING FORCED TO BUY A CERTAIN KIND OF CAR"

- WORDS: PAUL HORRELL

THE ZEV MANDATE GETS A BAD RAP. The myth goes that every year a bigger and bigger proportion of new cars sold must be electric and a correspondingly smaller proportion combustion engined, and that manufacturers have to pay a fine for every ICE car they sell above the allowed percentage. A figure of £15,000 has been bandied about.

Actually it isn't so simple. A big part of the ZEV mandate is something called the vehicle emissions trading scheme. The VETS allows manufacturers who register fewer ZEVs than the mandate to trade credits with manufacturers who sell more.