The U.K. joined France Wednesday in becoming the second major country to institute a ban on new petroleum vehicle sales starting in 2040.
While France is a relatively small market for U.S. auto producers Ford Motor Company F 0.09% and General Motors Company GM 0.47%, the U.K. ban puts some major pressure on automakers to deliver quality electric vehicles within the next 23 years or risk losing a major global market.
All new cars sold in the U.K. will have to be fully electric by the year 2040 as part of the nation’s goal to have all petroleum and hybrid cars off U.K. roads by 2050, said U.K. environmental secretary Michael Grove. The transition to all-electric vehicles would represent a major shift from current conditions in the U.K., where less than 1 percent of cars driven today are fully electric. Two weeks ago, France put a similar ban in place on non-electric new car sales starting in 2040, but U.S. automakers have a lot more riding on the U.K. ban.
France wasn’t among the top five global markets for General Motors in 2016 and not among Ford’s top 11 markets, according to Statista. The U.K., however, represented GM’s fourth-largest global market and Ford’s third-largest. The U.K. represented a combined 717,000 vehicle sales for Ford and GM last year. So far, neither China nor the U.S., GM and Ford’s two largest global markets, have moved toward any such ban.
General Motors’ fully electric Chevy Bolt hit the market last year and was named Car of the Year at the North American International Auto Show in January.
Silicon Valley rival Tesla Inc TSLA 0.18% is holding…
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