It doesn’t matter that, as it stands, it requires considerably more CO2 emissions to make a zero-emissions car than it does a pure-ICE one, nor that micro-volume cars are typically driven such small distances annually that it could take decades, if ever, for one to reach the point where a BEV would have been better for the planet.
This will especially be the case once non-fossil-based, renewable ICE fuels – which will be so essential for construction, aerospace and agriculture – come on-stream.
Concessions for these are being considered within the EU.It doesn’t matter that Ariel’s annual output wouldn’t keep Toyota in business for nine minutes. It doesn’t matter that these small companies win awards for exports.
It doesn’t matter that most UK race circuits don’t have and may not get the electrical capacity to quickly charge EVs’ batteries. It’s as simple as this: if it has four wheels, to be sold new in 10 years, it must have no tailpipe.Perhaps you think this is fine.
These are agile companies employing clever people. Previously Ariel has said an electric future doesn’t faze it, while Caterham has dabbled with a prototype Seven EV – although it couldn’t get it to work or, more pertinently, find many interested customers.
And it may be that promised new battery technology of the sort that is dissuading some current ICE car owners from making the EV switch (the solid-state batteries promised by Nissan in 2028, Stellantis’s lithium-sulphur batteries for 2030) will make an electric niche car better, lighter and more fun than it is today.
If that is the case (and this is true to an extent of the wider car industry), the regulations won’t be necessary.
We didn’t mandate cassettes, CDs, minidiscs or MP3 players into existence because of a dislike of vinyl; new tech was just preferable, so we chose it and left the hobbyists alone.
The same path would easily suit niche car makers: if we want to buy it, they will want to make it, and those who don’t will be so few that it will make no difference to the world.