No formal June 15 rule change was found on the Department for Transport's public pages during drafting. The official baseline remains the government's April 2025 package, which said the ZEV mandate would be changed to give manufacturers more flexibility while maintaining the existing phase-out dates and headline trajectories for cars and vans.
The distinction is central. A new-car sales mandate sets the share of manufacturers' sales that must be zero-emission vehicles. A 2030 phase-out stops new purely petrol and diesel car sales. A 2035 phase-out removes new hybrids from sale. The Guardian reported that the possible new proposal would keep the 2030 petrol and diesel ban and the 2035 hybrid deadline, while allowing hybrids to make up a larger part of sales before 2035.
Under the reported proposal, the 2030 target would move from 80% zero-emission cars and an implied 20% non-ZEV allowance to 50% zero-emission cars and 50% hybrids. The Guardian said government sources stressed that the ban on new purely petrol or diesel cars would still apply, and that the 2035 deadline for phasing out new hybrid cars was understood to remain in place.
The government had already loosened the rules in 2025. Its April 2025 release said hybrids such as the Toyota Prius and Nissan e-Power could be sold until 2035, borrowing and transfer flexibilities would be extended, and manufacturers would get more freedom on how to meet the target. The same release said the existing phase-out dates and headline trajectories would be maintained.
The policy argument has two sides. Unite, the trade union that campaigned for a review, told the Guardian the mandate could threaten jobs and expose manufacturers to large fines, and its general secretary Sharon Graham called the reported change a "huge victory" for a sector whose workers she said had feared for their jobs. That is the industrial case for a softer path: manufacturers and unions say demand, costs and factory planning have not matched the original trajectory.