Originally Posted by
JoePattinson
Whilst being ready early has some merit I think a key problem from a manufacturer perspective is the customer demand. If the public think that the deadline will keep being pushed back or the landscape keeps changing they will be less inclined to make the switch to electric vehicles and will either keep the car they have or buy another ICE car so the demand for electric vehicles will not be what the manufacturers are forecasting.
Manufacturers are already investing in new factories, developing new electric vehicles etc and they need customer demand because as an OEM you need your factory to be building a certain number of cars per day to be efficient, you can't just suddenly make a lot less. Most manufacturers are able to switch a small amount of volume to other markets in the short term but it is not that easy to do for various reasons.
So if your factory has to churn out cars everyday then you can't just park them up in a field, you need to sell them to the dealers quickly so they are not on your balance sheet and so you can hit the sales targets, contribution margin etc you have promised your shareholders.
If there is no demand from the public then you have to push the cars into the market which means spending more on marketing, discounts and incentives and support for dealers and customers so people will buy them. So then your cost of selling the car goes up a lot which really messes up the business case and has a knock on impact on your share price.
So, in my humble opinion, the car companies would have preferred the UK not to have made the commitment to end ICE sales in 2030 in the first place, however once the decision was made and now they have based all their planning/investments around that decision they would prefer them to stick to it.
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