UK government set to cut 2030 EV sales target from 80% to 60%

The UK government is expected to lower its mandated electric vehicle sales targets this week, with the 2030 goal reportedly set to fall from 80% to 60% of new car sales. Transport Secretary Louise Haigh is due to set out the revised Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate in the coming days, according to reports from The Guardian and the BBC cited by Autocar.

The move follows sustained pressure from an industry whose electric sales have not kept pace with the quotas. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) forecasts that just 27.2% of cars sold across the whole of this year will be electric, against a mandated 33% EV mix for 2026.

What is reportedly changing

Government insiders are said to suggest the 2030 EV sales target could be reduced from 80% to 60%, with car makers retaining access to various flexibilities within the mandate's mechanisms until 2034. Under the existing framework, manufacturers must hit annually increasing EV sales mix targets on the way to an 80% share by 2030, with a ban on new combustion-engined car sales following in 2035.

The Guardian reports that Haigh will finalise the plan after a crunch meeting on Wednesday intended to settle the dispute between the transport, energy and business departments. The changes are expected to be revealed this week.

Why the targets are being revisited

The existing quotas have proven out of step with organic consumer demand, forcing many manufacturers to heavily subsidise their electric cars at significant cost, or to pay penalties for non-compliance. The gap between mandate and market is forecast to widen: the SMMT expects EV sales to reach 32% next year against a 38% target, and to fall 14.5 percentage points behind the 52% target in 2028.

Electric car uptake has nonetheless grown. More than 500,000 were sold from January to November, a 30% year-on-year increase, driven in part by large rises in petrol and diesel costs and by manufacturers expanding their portfolios downwards into more affordable EVs.

SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes framed the problem as one of demand rather than supply. Almost one in three new cars registered in October was electric, he said, describing it as great progress achieved at enormous cost, with industry and government spending billions to help drivers switch. He warned that support cannot be sustained indefinitely while the gap to mandated targets is set to more than double by 2028, just as a new EV-only tax is introduced. Higher targets may force supply, he said, but they do not create demand, and the review must deliver substantive reform effective immediately.

Relaxing the mandate will relieve pressure on manufacturers, but it weakens a central plank of the UK's decarbonisation policy. Had the targets been kept and met, the ZEV mandate was expected to deliver 14% of the government's targeted CO2 reductions between 2028 and 2032. That is the trade-off behind the review: a slower, more market-aligned transition in exchange for less of the emissions saving the policy was designed to lock in.

What is still unconfirmed

The 60% figure and the extension of mandate flexibilities to 2034 rest on briefings to The Guardian and the BBC rather than a published government document, so the final numbers could differ when Haigh sets out the plan. The timing of the announcement, described as due this week, has not been formally confirmed either.

Lamborghini has handed over two one-off Revuelto supercars to Saudi customers, each built through its Ad Personam personalisation division around a desert-dune brief and finished in different colours and textures. The cars were delivered at the company's Sant'Agata Bolognese headquarters during La Prima, the factory ceremony for buyers collecting their cars in person.

Both carry Ad Personam KSA Edition badging and are numbered 1 of 2, marking them as a matched pair rather than a limited series other buyers can order. Lamborghini has not disclosed pricing for either car.

Two finishes, one dune theme

The first car wears matte Bianco Phanes paint with a dune graphic in Nero Nemesis and pinstriping in Verde Speranza, finished with gloss carbon fibre on the roof, A-pillars, aero fins and rear wing. The second reverses the treatment: gloss Bianco Monocerus paint, a Nero Noctis dune graphic and matte Verde Rodope accents, with matte carbon fibre elsewhere on the body. It also rides on 21-inch front and 22-inch rear Altanero forged wheels, a specification not mentioned for the first car.

Lamborghini says the livery was conceived as a graphic reading of airflow across the car's surfaces while echoing the shape of desert dunes, and that the design draws on the shapes and colours of Arabian desert dunes. In its press statement the company said the two editions show how a single design concept can be interpreted in distinct ways through the craftsmanship and personalisation expertise of the Ad Personam programme.

The cabins follow the same logic. Both use Nero Ade leather with carbon fibre trim and embroidery tracing the movement of dunes, and each has a dedicated panel on the rear wall stitched with the Arabic word for Legacy. A carbon fibre plaque on the driver and passenger sides repeats the KSA Edition signature.

Mechanics left untouched

Underneath, both cars are standard Revuelto. The plug-in hybrid powertrain pairs a 6.5-litre naturally aspirated V12 with three electric motors, an eight-speed dual-clutch gearbox and electronically controlled all-wheel drive, for a combined 1,015 horsepower, 0 to 62 mph in 2.5 seconds and a top speed above 217 mph.

The personalisation stops at paint, trim and badging, so the two commissions are mechanically identical. That is the same approach Lamborghini took with the Temerario Tricolore Ad Personam configuration shown at Pebble Beach earlier this year. Keeping the hardware standard is the sensible part of the strategy: buyers in this bracket are paying for a story and a finish, not a different car, and leaving the engineering alone keeps the pair easy to build alongside regular Revuelto production.

A regional push behind the badges

The commission fits a wider pattern of regional tribute editions, most recently a North America edition and a heritage paint package tied to a past model. The desert theme instead grounds the cars in local identity for Saudi clients.

Lamborghini now counts 24 dealers across the Middle East and Africa and has added a flagship showroom in Egypt as it pursues more ultra-high-end clients in the region. Read against that expansion, the KSA Edition pair works as a marketing instrument as much as a pair of cars: one-off builds generate the local press coverage and client relationships that support a growing dealer network, at little cost beyond paint and trim.