Climate & Energy · Monday, 17 August 2026

01 · Briefing · what happened

Britain moves to slow the one climate policy that was working

Climate & Energy 6 min 20 sources

Petrol is dear and electric car sales are climbing almost everywhere. Britain has opened a consultation that could cut its 2030 target from 80 percent to as low as 50.

50%

lowest proposed 2030 target

down from 80 percent of new UK car sales

27.4%

UK electric share in July

up 44.5 percent on a year earlier

1.85m

electric cars sold worldwide in July

up 9 percent, fifth straight monthly rise

65.1%

electric share of Chinese retail sales

a record, as petrol sales fell 44 percent

At a glance

Britain opened a consultation on Friday that could cut its 2030 electric-car target from 80 percent of new sales to as low as 50.
It is the second softening in a year, and it lands while UK electric sales are already running ahead of the target.
Battery-electric cars were 27.4 percent of UK registrations in July, up 44.5 percent on a year earlier.
Globally, electric car sales rose 9 percent in July to 1.85 million, a fifth straight monthly rise.
Europe rose 33 percent and the rest of the world 97 percent; North America fell 27 percent after US tax credits ended.
In China, petrol car sales fell 44 percent and electric took a record 65.1 percent of retail sales.
The war has kept the Strait of Hormuz shut, cutting oil supply 4.3 million barrels a day and keeping pump prices high.
Planes and ships have not switched at all, because a kilogram of jet fuel holds far more energy than a kilogram of battery.

Forces in play

Carmaker pressure High↑

The industry lobby asked for the review and got it; Britain is now consulting on four ways to soften the rule, three of which cut the 2030 floor.

High petrol prices High→

The Strait of Hormuz is still shut, oil supply is down 4.3 million barrels a day, and dear fuel is pushing drivers toward electric across Europe and Asia.

Chinese export wave Building↑

Chinese electric-vehicle exports rose 147.8 percent in July and passed 500,000 in a month, opening markets from Argentina to Pakistan.

US retreat High↑

North American sales fell 27 percent in July after Washington ended the federal tax credit last September. One consultancy now sees the US at just 20 percent electric by 2040.

Battery cost and weight Easing↓

Cells keep getting cheaper and better - sodium-ion prototypes now approach 200 watt-hours per kilogram - which is why cars and buses are switching while planes are not.

In play UK Department for Transport — opened the consultation on four alternative targets Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders — the carmakers' lobby that asked for the review Chinese exporters — shipped over 500,000 electric vehicles in July, a record month Air Canada and Maersk — burning liquid fuel at high prices, with no electric option

How it unfolded

2024 Britain brings in the mandate: 80 percent electric by 2030, 100 percent by 2035
Last year the government adds flexibilities, letting plug-in hybrids count
July UK electric share hits 27.4 percent, up 44.5 percent on a year earlier
Friday a consultation opens on cutting the 2030 target to as low as 50 percent
23 October the consultation closes

Where this points

Watch whether the consultation lands on the 50 percent option or the flexibility-only option - the first would reshape what carmakers build for Britain, the second would leave the target standing.

Full briefing

The wobble

Britain opened a formal consultation on Friday that could soften the rule pushing carmakers to sell electric vehicles [1]. The mandate, brought in during 2024, sets a rising floor. Zero-emission cars must be 33 percent of new sales in 2026, 80 percent in 2030, and 100 percent by 2035 [1]. Carmakers that miss the floor pay fines.

Four alternative paths are on the table. Three keep the 2035 endpoint but cut the 2030 figure to as low as 50 percent. The fourth keeps the current path and adds flexibility for manufacturers [1]. The Department for Transport said it was reviewing the targets to keep them “pro-business and grounded in the real world” [1]. The consultation runs to 23 October, and van targets are likely to change too [2].

The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a think tank, estimates the most extreme option could cut electric car sales by as much as 5.8 million [2]. This would be the second softening. Last year the government added what it called flexibilities, letting more plug-in hybrids count toward the mandate and letting carmakers catch up in later years [2].

The oddity is the timing. British battery-electric cars hit 27.4 percent of new registrations in July, up 44.5 percent on a year earlier [1][3]. Counting plug-in hybrids, plug-in vehicles are near 40 percent of new UK sales so far this year [3]. Polling commissioned by the charging industry found 53 percent of Britons want the switch to continue at the same pace or faster, against 37 percent who want it slowed [2]. Mike Hawes of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, the industry lobby, called the review “a timely opportunity to adjust the transition so it works for all” [2].

What the rest of the world did in July

Global sales of battery and plug-in cars rose 9 percent on a year earlier, to 1.85 million, the fifth straight monthly rise [4]. Year to date the total is 11.5 million [4]. The figures come from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a commodities research firm [4].

The growth is lopsided. Europe climbed 33 percent to 450,000, with France up 81 percent, Germany 46 percent and Britain 43 percent [4]. The rest of the world jumped 97 percent to 280,000 [4]. North America fell 27 percent to 140,000 after Washington killed the federal tax credit last September [4][5].

China’s headline number fell 5 percent to 980,000, but the detail runs the other way [4]. Petrol car sales there plunged 44 percent, plug-in hybrids fell 21 percent, and the share of new-energy vehicles in retail sales hit a record 65.1 percent [5][6]. Total Chinese car sales are down 12.5 percent over seven months [6]. In other words, everything with an engine is collapsing faster than anything else. Chinese exports of new-energy vehicles rose 147.8 percent in July, passing 500,000 in a month for the first time [5][6].

That export wave is landing in places nobody modelled. In Argentina, BYD’s aggressive entry plus President Javier Milei’s removal of import tariffs on cheaper electric cars has opened a market long closed by import taxes [7]. In Pakistan, electric motorbikes barely existed three years ago; some 84 companies now sell them [8]. One street in Lahore went from a handful of showrooms to eight, with two more around the corner [8]. Aditya Ramji of the Global South Center for Clean Transportation offered the honest caveat. Electrifying vehicles alone will not decarbonise transport, he said, because many of these countries are adding petrol cars too as incomes rise [7].

Nigeria shows the other limit. It approved tax waivers for nearly 4,000 electric vehicles in the first half of the year, but its grid supplies about 4,000 megawatts to more than 200 million people [9]. Charging stations, dealerships and battery-swap operators run diesel generators when the grid fails [9].

The war behind the numbers

None of this is happening in calm conditions. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed. The International Energy Agency, the West’s energy watchdog, now expects global oil supply to fall 4.3 million barrels a day this year, about 4 percent [10][11]. Some 8.3 million barrels a day of Gulf output is still shut in [10]. It also expects world oil demand to fall 1.6 million barrels a day in 2026, blaming the closure and high fuel prices [10]. OPEC, the producer group, cut its 2026 demand growth forecast for a fourth straight time, to 580,000 barrels a day [12].

Wood Mackenzie, an energy consultancy, argues three forces now push the same way. Oil supply shocks from the wars in Russia and Iran, high pump prices pushing drivers to switch, and fast battery innovation [13]. Its forecast is blunt about geography. European electric market share rises from 3 percent in 2025 to 35 percent by 2040; the American share reaches only 20 percent, because abundant domestic oil keeps petrol cheap [13].

What still cannot switch

Cars are the easy case. The parts of transport that carry their fuel a long way have not moved at all.

Air Canada restored its profit forecast at a lower level, expecting jet fuel to stay dear [14]. Its second-quarter fuel bill rose 49 percent on a year earlier [14]. It now assumes C$1.38 a litre for jet fuel in the third quarter, against an earlier full-year assumption of C$0.90 [14]. Fuel is roughly a quarter of an airline’s operating costs [14]. Maersk, the Danish container line, raised its full-year guidance for the second time after a $3.0 billion quarterly profit [15]. Neither company has an electric option to reach for.

The physical reason sits in a battery specification. A review published this month put current sodium-ion cells at 100 to 160 watt-hours per kilogram, with advanced prototypes approaching 200 [16]. A watt-hour is a unit of stored energy; per kilogram, it tells you how much energy you get for the weight you must carry. Good lithium cells manage about 250. Diesel and jet fuel hold about 12,000 watt-hours in the same kilogram. That gap decides which machines can switch and which cannot, and no subsidy moves it.

Elsewhere in the energy week

The factory side is thawing unevenly. A General Motors and LG Energy Solution battery plant in northeast Ohio restarts cell production next week, putting 1,400 people back to work [17]. It had been shut for seven months; the companies stopped in January when demand fell [17]. Kia sold more than 8,000 of its small EV2 in its first three full months, at a German starting price of 26,600 euros [18].

Meanwhile Europe’s heat is reaching its power stations. Record-low water on the Danube forced Romania’s state utility to shut its last working reactor [19]. Hungary cut output at its 2-gigawatt Paks plant to just over 10 percent earlier this month, and is now running at 25 percent [19]. Hungary is sinking barges to build a riverbed sill and raise the water level [19]. And India is on course for a record 50 gigawatts of solar installations this year [20]. It added 34 gigawatts in the first half, 38 percent above the same period last year [20].

02 · Lesson · why it matters

Why the car went electric and the plane did not

A machine that carries its own fuel is limited not by the price of the fuel, but by how much fits in a kilogram.

How it works

A machine that moves must carry its own energy
Liquid fuel holds about 12,000 watt-hours in a kilogram
A good battery cell holds about 250
An engine wastes most of it; a motor wastes little, so the real gap is nearer 16 to 1
If weight barely matters, the gap is affordable and the machine switches
If the machine must lift its fuel or carry it for weeks, the gap decides

The twist

The transition did not start with cars because cars matter most. It started with cars because a car is the machine least punished for carrying heavy energy.

Where you've seen this

Backpacking

you carry dried food, not tins, because the water in the tin is weight you must lift

Cordless tools

a drill went battery-powered decades before a lawnmower, because it needs far less energy per job

Phones

the battery is the heaviest part, which is why every gain in cells shows up as a thinner phone rather than a longer day

Space rockets

fuel must lift fuel, so each extra minute of burn costs far more than a minute

The catch

Density is not destiny. A short flight, a coastal ferry or a fixed bus route can already switch, because the mission is short enough that the weight never bites.

Full lesson

The split nobody voted for

Look at what actually moved this year. Chinese petrol car sales fell 44 percent. Electric took a record 65.1 percent of the country’s retail sales. Europe’s electric sales rose a third in a single month. Electric motorbikes went from almost nothing in Pakistan to 84 companies selling them.

Now look at what did not move. Air Canada’s fuel bill rose by half and it has no other option. Maersk booked a three-billion-dollar quarter still burning heavy oil. Not one of the world’s container ships or airliners switched.

That is not a difference in willpower, subsidy, or politics. Cars and motorbikes and buses sit on one side of a line, planes and ocean ships on the other. The line was drawn by a number.

What a kilogram holds

Every machine that moves has to carry its own energy supply. So the question that decides everything is this: how much energy comes with each kilogram you must carry?

Diesel and jet fuel hold roughly 12,000 watt-hours in a kilogram. A watt-hour is a unit of stored energy, enough to run a small lamp for an hour. A good lithium battery cell holds about 250 of them. Sodium-ion, the cheaper chemistry now coming out of the labs, holds 100 to 160.

So by weight, fuel beats battery by roughly 48 to one.

That raw figure overstates it, and the correction matters. An engine wastes most of what it burns as heat; only about 30 percent becomes motion. An electric motor wastes almost nothing, and about 90 percent reaches the wheels. Adjust for that and the useful gap is closer to 16 to one. Still enormous. And a finished battery pack, with its casing and cooling, weighs more than the bare cells, so real machines do a little worse than these numbers.

Why the car never felt it

A car does not care much about weight. It rolls along flat ground, stops often, and recovers some energy when it brakes. Add 240 kilograms of battery to a 1,300-kilogram car and you have made it heavier, but you have not stopped it doing its job.

That is the whole reason cars went first. Not because cars matter most for the climate, and not because governments picked them. Because a car is the machine least punished for carrying heavy energy. The lightest job got done first, and everyone read that as the transition beginning.

A bus on a fixed route is easier still, since it comes home each night to the same plug. A long-haul truck starts to feel it. The battery for a thousand-kilometre day weighs about five and a half tonnes, and every tonne of battery is a tonne of cargo you no longer carry.

The trap at the top

A plane is the hardest case, and not by a little.

Work out the battery for a three-hour flight and it comes to around 144 tonnes. The aircraft empty weighs about 42 tonnes and cannot legally take off above 79 tonnes with everything aboard. The battery alone is nearly twice the whole loaded aeroplane.

And it gets worse as you try to fix it. A plane does not merely carry its fuel; it lifts it, for the whole flight. Add battery for more range and you add weight, which needs more energy to lift, which needs more battery. The problem eats its own solution.

Double the energy in a cell, better than anything now on a lab bench, and the flight still cannot happen. That is why no amount of political will has produced an electric airliner, while political will was barely needed to produce an electric car.

What the ratio decides, and what it does not

Which brings us to Britain, arguing this week about the easy case.

The mandate under review governs cars. It is the piece of the transition that physics was never going to block. The consultation offers to cut the 2030 target from 80 percent to as low as 50. That is the one part of transport already running ahead of schedule, in a year when a closed Strait of Hormuz made petrol dear enough that drivers were switching anyway.

Meanwhile no target at all governs the container ship carrying the goods in the argument, or the plane overhead. Those parts were never on the table, because the ratio put them out of reach and nobody legislates against arithmetic. So the visible fight is over the part that was going to happen, and the silence covers the part that was not.

Ratios cut the other way too, and honesty requires saying so. A short hop, a coastal ferry, a fixed bus route are already switching, because the mission is short enough that the weight never bites. The same battery that cannot fly to Madrid runs a harbour ferry fine. Sitting still in a field beside a solar farm, where weight costs nothing at all, it is the cheapest way we have ever had to hold electricity overnight.

Who is inside this

The gap reaches further than the machines.

Nigeria’s grid supplies 4,000 megawatts to more than 200 million people, so charging stations run on diesel generators. That is the density problem again, showing up not as weight but as a missing wire. In Lahore, the motorbike is the machine where the switch is cheapest, so that is where it happened first, with no mandate at all.

The reader is in it too, though not where they might look. Not mainly as a driver. As the recipient of everything that arrived by ship, and the buyer of every fare with jet fuel folded into it. Those costs are set by a number in a fuel tank that no vote reaches.

The pattern is unglamorous and it is not going away. When a thing must carry its own supply, density decides what is possible; price only decides what is comfortable. Most of what looks like choice in this story was settled before anyone sat down to argue.

03 · Lab · your turn

Carry your own fuel

Pick a machine and a distance, and feel why weight decides which vehicles could go electric and which could not.

04 · Hope · carry this

A kilogram of battery holds several times what it did thirty years ago, and the people working on it are not finished. Hard limits do move. They just move slowly, and by hand.