‘I’m a UK car dealer – this is the brutal truth about selling electric cars’

A leading UK car dealer has revealed the brutal truth about selling electric vehicles after revealing customer demand isn’t there.

Peter Smyth, Director at leading car dealership Swansway Motor Group, revealed the lengths companies are going to secure EV sales and meet targets. Peter said public acceptance for EVs was still a long way off and suggested that dealers were only stocking EVs because they had to.

Peter told The Telegraph: “Electric vehicles (EVs) will be the future one day, but right now we can still only sell around one electric vehicle for every four petrol, diesel or hybrid cars. Customers don’t have the appetite yet.”

He added: “So why are we so keen to sell them? Well, we pretty much have to. Under the ludicrous ZEV mandate, the Government is forcing car manufacturers to register an increasing percentage of their cars as zero emission – no matter whether there is natural demand or not.”

It doesn’t end there, with Peter stressing that manufacturers were often dramatically cutting the cost of cars to meet strict Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate targets. Peter added that he had noticed some lease deals often don’t reflect the cost of the car.

The latest warning comes after the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) called upon the Government to open a review into ZEV Mandate rules. President Mike Hawes stressed that waiting until 2027 to look into the current guidelines was not an option, with the gap between ambition and market demand widening.

And it’s not just manufacturers who could feel the sting, with Peter adding that car dealers are also punished for failing to meet their own sales targets.

Peter told The Telegraph: “If we don’t sell our quota of EVs, the manufacturers won’t release our bonuses. Missing these would cost each one of my dealerships around £500,000 a year.

“Margins are tight. We might have a £1bn turnover at my own firm, Swansway Motor Group, but we only get about a 1.1 per cent return on sales. The profitability of car dealerships has already taken a downward turn as a result.”