The Department for Transport (DfT) intends to “provide certainty” to manufacturers by restoring the 2030 phase-out date for the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.

While there was no mention of the changes in the King’s Speech, which sets out the Government’s legislative plan, the DfT told Fleet News it intends to publish further details in “due course”.

However, with the DfT only referring to cars in its plans, it remains unclear whether the deadline will also be brought forward from 2035 to 2030 for fossil fuelled vans.

There is also uncertainty over how a new 2030 deadline will apply to both mild and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), with the original legislation stating the sale of new hybrid cars and vans that can drive a “significant distance with no carbon coming out of the tailpipe” would be allowed until 2035. 

The last Government had originally introduced a ban on the sale of new internal combustion engine (ICE) cars and vans from 2030 in 2020. But, in what the previous Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, described as a “new approach to achieving net zero”, the phase-out date for sales of new ICE cars and vans was pushed back five years to 2035, last year.

During the election campaign, the Labour Party pledged to reinstate the original deadline of 2030 for cars, but made no mention of vans.

The adoption of electric vans by fleets is lagging behind that of electric cars, with the most recent registration figures suggesting a faltering electric light commercial vehicle (LCV) market.