“Here in my car, I feel safest of all”. So sang Gary Numan back in 1979. The former Tubeway Army frontman believed that with your doors locked and obvious ability to flee from danger, being in a motor vehicle was the best protection one could hope for. Unfortunately, as we hurtle towards Net Zero, that suggestion has aged far worse than the Moog-enthusiast’s venerable back catalogue.
In the last two weeks, we have seen a series of news stories about the various strategic dangers a coming “invasion” of Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) could pose to Britain. In their wake come concerns ranging from an undercutting of our already-moribund car industry to suggestions the EVs could contain spyware, to ministerial concerns about data harvesting and potential interference with infrastructure.
I don’t want to say I told you so. Well, actually, I do. Because I did. Three months ago, I wrote that the plan to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030, and those of hybrids by 2035, was leaving us vulnerable to relying on Beijing for our future supply in vehicles. This is an obvious problem if we continue to flourish in the foothills of Cold War Two and remain committed to defending Taiwan.
In the 2010s, China was a huge importer of vehicles. It still is. But since the pandemic, its exports have surged, erasing a trade deficit in only three years. Primarily, these are from Western companies that have set up shop in the People’s Republic. But what makes this export burst so interesting is that it is overwhelmingly composed of EVs.
Beijing’s objective is clear: to do for the EV market what it has already done for steel. By flooding the European market with cheaper models, China can hope to undercut rival and establish a dominant market share. This process has been backed by vast government subsidies, with manufacturers set to offer cars more than £8,000 cheaper than their nearest competitors.
Jeremy Clarkson’s 2012 prediction that we would soon all be driving Chinese cars is coming true. China is now the world’s largest car exporter, with a quarter of those being EVS, with a predicted 1.3 million being shipped out this year alone. By contrast, whilst Britain produced 1.7 million vehicles in 2017, that was down to 780,000 last year – the lowest total since 1956.
Readers should also remember that China has established control over vast swathes stocks of various crucial minerals required for EV manufacturing. It processes around 80 per cent of the world’s cobalt, and a third of its lithium. It also controls 80 per cent of the battery-making capacity for electric vehicles. Remember also that over 60 per cent of the world’s semiconductors are made in Taiwan.
It’s therefore no surprise that sales of Chinese cars are surging. Already this January, the best-selling car model in the UK was Chinese. Continuing to pursue the ban on non-electric car sales by the end of the decade therefore looks likely to set Britain up for a strategic dependency on a hostile nation on a par with Germany’s recent penchant for Russian gas.
The problem the Government has is that it has set itself an end – the banning of all non-electric car sales – without willing the means. It is the equivalent of John F. Kennedy telling the American people that he wishes to get to the Moon by the end of the 1960s but refusing to provide NASA with the necessary funds.
As I have previously highlighted, we are over 200,000 EV chargers off the number the Competition and Markets Authority suggests wee need by 2030. With just one new public charger being built for every 53 electric cars sold, it is no wonder that average car buyers remain sceptical. Just 16.5 per cent of cars sold in the UK in February were electric, down from 17.7 per cent a year before.
The Government is therefore far off its self-imposed target. What is required is a program of subsidies on a par with the £300 billion Joe Biden is chucking at all things green across the Atlantic. If the Government believes that banning non-electric cars is really so important for the future of the planet, this is an objective that must be backed with a full-scale industrial strategy.
Instead – despite recent good news on a battery ‘gigafactory’ coming to Somerset which fills one with almost as much hope as James Rew’s batting – we remain the country where British Volt collapsed in recent memory, led by a Prime Minister and Chancellor whose scepticism of industrial strategy and fondness for keeping a tight check on spending is well known. As such, a target that was already undeliverable disappears even further over the horizon.
Nevertheless, if Rishi Sunak really is serious about a post-Uxbridge buttering up of motorists, scrapping the 2030 target would not be a bad place to start. Sorry Numan, but, this time, our friends are most certainly not electric.