The UK government plans to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035. This means that more and more of us will be switching to electric cars in the coming years. But reports of the combustion engine’s demise are also greatly exaggerated, with many petrol and diesel vehicles likely to remain on the roads for years or even decades to come, long after any petrol or diesel car ban is introduced.
In 2017, the government announced plans for a ban that would originally have come into force in 2040. The idea behind it was primarily to address air pollution, due to vehicle exhaust fumes. A year before that, a report from the Royal College of Physicians concluded that air pollution was claiming 40,000 lives a year in Britain, and MPs declared a public health emergency.
The UK's policy initially mirrored that of the EU, but in March 2023 the EU agreed to allow new vehicles running on synthetic fuels – also known as eFuels – that are effectively carbon neutral to remain on sale beyond 2030. So far, the UK government is not set to follow suit. The EU is also set to permit the sale of petrol-engined and diesel-engined vehicles for small volume car makers that produce fewer than 1,000 units per year.
When Will Petrol and Diesel Cars be Banned? What You Need to Know:
- The Causes of Air Pollution and CO2 Emissions
- The Target for Net Zero Carbon Emissions
- When Will Diesel Cars be Banned?
- When Will Petrol Cars be Banned?
- Will Hybrid Cars be Banned?
- Will I Still be Able to Buy a Petrol or Diesel Car After the Ban?
- When Will I Have to Sell my Petrol or Diesel Car?
The Causes of Air Pollution and CO2 Emissions
Vehicles are by no means the only source of air pollution. And for that matter, banning petrol and diesel cars doesn’t solve the air quality issue completely, as electric cars give off a significant amount of dust particles from their brakes and tyres. Nonetheless, it should dramatically reduce the production of nitrogen dioxide – a gas given off by both petrol and diesel engines that can cause damage to people’s lungs and worsen the effects of respiratory conditions such as asthma.
Phasing out petrol and diesel cars should also help to reduce long-term CO2 emissions. Although there’s still a carbon cost associated with building electric cars, they don’t produce any tailpipe emissions, so their overall footprint is lower – especially if they’re run on electricity from renewable sources.
The Target for Net Zero Carbon Emissions
In the run up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (known as COP26) in November 2021, the then prime minister Boris Johnson announced a 10-point plan to help Britain achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. As part of what he termed the Green Industrial Revolution, the ban on new petrol and diesel car sales would be brought forward to 2030. He also announced that the sale of new hybrid cars would be banned from 2035 (we’ll take a closer look at exactly what this means further on in the guide). The, in September 2023, Johnson's successor, prime minister Rishi Sunak, announced that the ban on new petrol and diesel cars would be delayed until 2035.
Even with the five-year extention these are ambitious targets. Electric cars saw record sales figures in 2022, but they still accounted for just 16.6% of the market that year. Nonetheless, the UK’s plans are broadly in line with what’s happening elsewhere. France was one of the first nations to announce its intentions to ban petrol and diesel car sales, shortly before the UK followed suit. Again, the original target was 2040, but this has been superseded by a proposal to effectively ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars across the whole EU from 2035.
This builds on existing efforts to reduce the use of fossil fuels. As far back as 2012, car-makers across the EU (including the UK, at the time) agreed to a series of targets that would progressively reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of their vehicles. Although this scheme didn’t explicitly seek to ban petrol or diesel, the targets that it set provided a clear incentive for automotive manufacturers to begin moving towards zero-emissions vehicles.
Fast forward to the present day and electric cars are becoming more popular than ever. But many of us still use petrol or diesel, and the clock is ticking. So where does that leave us? Read on to find out.
When Will Diesel Cars be Banned?
The sale of new diesel cars is set to be banned in 2035. Some may receive a brief stay of execution if they use a diesel engine as part of a hybrid system, but they will be phased out in time as well (see the hybrid section below).
In some respects, this could be an unfortunate end for what was once the UK’s most popular type of engine. Diesel cars typically emit less CO2 and offer better fuel economy than their petrol-powered counterparts.
Although they’ve historically been worse for air quality emissions, such as nitrogen dioxide, many diesels now emit similar levels to the equivalent petrol engines. They also tend to perform best under circumstances where hybrid and electric vehicles offer less benefit – such as long motorway journeys, where some diesel cars can cover more than 1,000 miles between fill-ups.
When Will Petrol Cars be Banned?
As with diesels, the sale of new petrol cars will be banned in 2035. This comes with the same caveat that some hybrid models – with a petrol engine allied to an electric motor – will remain on sale for a further five years.
For the car manufacturers, it’s not quite as simple as flicking a switch at the end of the decade. The government has recently announced plans for an additional scheme that would force car companies to commit to selling an increasing percentage of zero-emission models from 2024 onwards.
This would begin with a relatively modest target of 22% zero emissions sales in the first year. But by 2029, the target will have risen to 66 per cent. Bearing in mind that a substantial proportion of the remainder will almost certainly be hybrids, this could put pressure on manufacturers to scale back the production of pure petrol and diesel models well before 2030.
The key thing to bear in mind with all types of cars, however, is that these rules would only apply to new sales. Petrol, diesel and hybrid vehicles that roll off the forecourt before the cut-off dates will not be affected.
Will Hybrid Cars be Banned?
The simple answer is yes, the sale of new hybrid cars will be banned, although it's not entirely sure if this will coincide with the petrol and diesel ban in 2035 or not. Indeed, this remains one of the most confusing parts of the proposed legislation.
For a start, the term hybrid covers a wide range of options. Many petrol and diesel models now come with a degree of ‘mild’ hybridisation that helps to reduce the load on the engine. In many cases, these aren’t even marketed as hybrids, because the impact they have on the engine is so small, and they’re not generally capable of running on electricity alone.
At the other end of the scale, there are plug-in hybrids (otherwise known as PHEVs). These have larger batteries that can be plugged into an external charger, similar to those on a fully electric vehicle. As a result, many of these cars can travel significant distances without using their petrol or diesel engine at all – upwards of 40 miles on a single charge is increasingly common.
The government has previously said that hybrids that offer ‘a significant zero emissions capability’ will be allowed to remain on sale until 2035. That means that the milder end of the hybrid spectrum will almost certainly fall foul of the regulations, but the government has yet to clarify exactly where it will draw the line.
Given the aggressive targets set elsewhere, it seems likely that the limit will be set towards the upper end of what’s possible with today’s plug-in hybrids, or possibly even beyond. One thing we do know is that it will only be a temporary measure, and new hybrids will also be banned at some point.
Will I Still be Able to Buy a Petrol or Diesel Car After the Ban?
When it comes to second-hand cars, the answer is a resounding yes. The ban on petrol and diesel cars in 2035 will only affect the sale of new cars.
For most new car buyers, the only option will then be an electric car. However, high-end sports car manufacturers in Germany and Italy have successfully lobbied for an exemption within the EU for new models that run exclusively on low-carbon synthetic fuel. Manufacturers producing fewer than 1,000 cars per year may also be exempt.
It’s not out of the question that Britain could offer something similar, but at the time of writing, the UK Government's position is that it will not permit the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles even if they run on synthetic fuel only.
The reasoning behind this is that although eFuel are effectively carbon neutral overall – as they capture carbon from the atmosphere as part of their production process – they still produce emissions at the tailpipe.
When Will I Have to Sell my Petrol or Diesel Car?
Existing cars won’t be affected by the ban, which only applies to new petrol and diesel sales, so it’s unlikely that you will ever be forced to part with your pride and joy. However, it’s possible that the running costs of fossil fuel cars may go up due to taxation and the increasing use of low-emissions zones (especially in major cities, such as the London ULEZ charge).
What exactly will happen to the used car market is harder to predict. Not so long ago we were seeing the demand for electric cars threatening to outstrip supply. However, by the middle of 2023 this had ceased to be the case, with an excess of supply contributing to sharply falling EV prices.
There’s also a question over how many motorists will be realistically able to run an electric car. Although their running costs are lower, electric cars tend to cost significantly more than equivalent petrol or diesel models to purchase, and the incentives to buy one have been scaled back in recent years. The public charging infrastructure is also quite patchy in some areas, with chargers sometimes hard to find or out of action.
The government has vowed to address these issues with a tenfold increase in the number of electric charging points, but critics claim that this won’t go far enough. It’s likely that certain buyers will be keen to continue running petrol or diesel cars for as long as possible, and some may even be prepared to pay a premium to do so.
That’s particularly true for classic car owners and other enthusiasts. The good news here is that the UK has traditionally been one of the most accommodating countries in the world towards those that want to run old or unusual vehicles. It’s reasonable to assume that this trend will continue.
Will I Still be Able to Buy Petrol and Diesel After the Ban?
Absolutely. The average age of a car on UK roads is 8.4 years, which means the typical family runaround in 2035 will likely still run on petrol or diesel.
Although the percentage of cars running on petrol and diesel is set to go down, the overall number of vehicles is likely to keep going up for the foreseeable future. As a result, it's even possible that the sale of petrol will continue to rise until at least 2035 before gradually going down.
Whatever the long term future holds, the government, the motor trade and the fuel companies will have to support those who continue running petrol and diesel cars into the 2030s – and potentially well beyond that.