Campaign group FairFuelUK has called on the government to scrap the 2030 ban on sales of new pure petrol and diesel cars, after the Department for Transport reaffirmed that the deadline remains in place alongside a 2035 cut-off for new hybrids.
The call follows a change of direction in Brussels. In December 2025 the European Commission proposed to soften its planned 2035 ban on new combustion-engined cars, replacing a 100 per cent zero-emission requirement with a 90 per cent tailpipe emissions reduction target.
Under the Commission’s draft, there is no absolute end date for new petrol and diesel cars in the EU. The remaining 10 per cent of emissions can be offset through measures including low-carbon steel and sustainable fuels, allowing some combustion-engined vehicles to stay on sale indefinitely.
The UK is taking a different path. The government confirmed in April 2025 that sales of new pure petrol and diesel cars will end in 2030, with new hybrids permitted until 2035.
FairFuelUK says analysis published on its website shows the 2030 ban will cost at least five times its claimed environmental benefits, and has asked why the UK has not followed the EU’s revised approach.
Howard Cox, founder of FairFuelUK, said: “Keeping the 2030 ban will cripple the UK economy and will not accelerate the uptake of expensive EVs. The Government is forcing them onto us without consultation and is relying on subsidies and tax breaks to bribe us all into submission. And the national grid simply cannot cope with the extra load required to keep the nation fully charged.”
He added: “The rest of Europe has sensibly put back its ban on new fossil-fuel car sales. Wanting to lead the way with an ill-informed, clueless approach that wrecks the UK economy for pure ideology makes no sense whatsoever.”
Cox said: “British motorists, manufacturers and jobs are being sacrificed on the altar of a target that independent analysis proves delivers vanishingly small climate returns at enormous economic cost. Drivers deserve better than this. Scrap the 2030 ban now – before the damage becomes irreversible. The war on the motorist remains at the heart of Labour’s ignorance of how to make the economy grow.”
The group said it is urging the government to “follow the evidence” and abandon the policy, which it says affects 37 million UK motorists.
The government has defended its timetable. In a written statement to Parliament in January 2025, the Department for Transport said the transition is backed by more than £2.3 billion of support for manufacturers and consumers, alongside a package it says will support £6 billion of private investment in charging infrastructure by 2030.
Ministers have also faced calls from carmakers to rethink the 2030 deadline. The government’s April 2025 response followed a review of its EV sales targets under the zero emission vehicle mandate, which sets the share of new cars that must be zero emission each year in the run-up to 2030.
In its April 2025 response, the government said its decision gives “clarity on technology and emissions reduction requirements that will apply post-2030”. It has not indicated any plan to revisit the 2030 date in response to the EU’s proposal.
