Fisted…. er…. I mean Fisker.

Yes, the owners will feel pretty fisted when it comes to residuals!

I don't really get what is going on in this space. The EV mandate and all sorts of other legislation means EV sales growth will be high regardless of what consumers think - we are being told, not asked. But because there has been more poor customer sentiment, EV company valuations are crashing, despite this.

There also needs to be a more open discussion about China. Their vehicles are built with government support, and the environmental and labour rights aspects are not what we would consider acceptable in the West. So why are we not adding big import duties? I assume Western companies want their markets, but what % of them will they get, and what % of them want a premium priced product??

Because if we did that, achieving net zero and required electric sales penetration would become far harder, when there is an agenda to achieve, certain things can be conveniently ignored!

I do wonder what is going to happen with this electric vehicle mandate, I don't think it is achievable at all and sooner or later manufacturers will be sticking 2 fingers up at the relevant governments, saying "up with this we will no put", currently only meaningful electric car sales are achieved through heavy incentives through business purchases, salary sacrifice schemes. Motability or discounting the arse out of the cars as making a huge loss on a car is preferable to the heavy fines, this can't be sustained forever and TBH all the tax backed incentives aren't helping the "average man".

Manufacturers have been calling for more financial incentives but if the only way to achieve sales is through financial incentives, it is hardly a good model. From April 2025 electric cars will be hit with VED which is retrospective back to April 2017 plus the "luxury car" tax, this isn't going to help sales going forward, TBH though I think they should be subject to VED.

And on the OP, it is shame about Fisker. As it was actually, despite all I've said above about the market and coercion, an interesting EV. Not Chinese, not pig ugly. But it seems that the Fisker, the man, had talked a good shag - again - to get this far and taken Fisker, the car, down with him.

This chart explains why the UK and Europe should just give the fuck up with this “saving the planet” bollocks. The local population suffers and no benefit is given to the rest of the world.

I'm surprised India is only 7.2% although I imagine that'll increase as more production moves there from China.

I think China, Russia and Iran's agendas are pretty well known

Was told earlier this week that going forward there is likely to be restrictions on registrations of ICE later in the year, plus less ICE being visible and available to dealers, currently EV registration for us sits at 5% for the UK, we as a dealer haven't sold a retail EV since Q3 2023.

We get zero retail enquiries on EV, TBH we don't get any business user enquiries either, basically apart from Motability we don't get any enquiries on EV.

Funnily enough, I’ve seen two Fisker Oceans in two days. Nice looking cars.