Ford’s UK managing director is pushing back against proposed electric vehicle taxation just weeks after the U.S. federal tax credit expiration triggered the exact market collapse she’s warning about—exposing how legacy automakers built EV strategies dependent on perpetual government subsidies rather than genuine competitiveness.

Lisa Brankin, Ford UK’s chair and managing director, told the BBC’s Big Boss Interview podcast that proposed pay-per-mile EV charges would damage already-fragile demand.

“It’s certainly not the right time to do it,” Brankin said, warning that taxation would function as “just another brake” on EV adoption at a time when “customer demand is not in line with that ambition.”

The comments arrive as UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves prepares to unveil a 3-pence-per-mile EV charge in her November 26 Budget, with implementation targeted for 2028.

The Subsidy Trap Exposed

Brankin’s opposition to UK EV taxation reveals a fundamental contradiction at the heart of Ford’s electric vehicle strategy: the company simultaneously demands continued government support while warning that new costs will crater demand—essentially admitting their EVs cannot compete without perpetual taxpayer subsidies.

“It’s really easy to sell people things they want,” Brankin said. “It’s hard to sell people things they don’t want.”

That statement cuts to the core problem. Ford has lost approximately $13 billion on EVs since 2023, with the Model E division hemorrhaging $1.4 billion in Q3 2025 alone. The F-150 Lightning faces potential cancellation. Production remains halted following a supplier fire, with Ford prioritizing aluminum for profitable gas-powered trucks over money-losing electric models.

The UK government’s proposed pay-per-mile system would charge EV drivers an estimated £250 ($315 USD) annually starting in 2028, addressing the revenue shortfall as fuel duty collections decline. A Treasury spokesperson framed the policy as creating “a fairer system for all drivers,” noting that petrol and diesel motorists currently pay around £600 ($755 USD) annually in fuel duty while EV owners pay nothing.

U.S. Market Collapse Validates Brankin’s Warning

The timing of Brankin’s comments is striking: she’s warning about demand destruction just seven weeks after the September 30, 2025 U.S. federal tax credit expiration triggered exactly the market collapse she’s predicting.

U.S. EV sales plummeted 24% in October after the $7,500 tax credit expired, dropping from 98,289 units in September to just 74,897 units. Ford’s EV sales specifically fell 24% across all models in the first post-subsidy month.

The American experience proves Brankin’s core argument about demand sensitivity—but also exposes Ford’s deeper failure. Even with $7,500 in federal subsidies, Ford couldn’t make the Lightning profitable. Without subsidies, the vehicle became economically unviable almost overnight.

UK Market Shows Subsidy Dependence

The UK’s EV market currently relies heavily on manufacturer discounting and government support to maintain momentum. Through October 2025, battery electric vehicles captured 22.4% of new car sales—up from 19.6% in 2024—driven largely by the reinstated £3,750 Electric Car Grant and aggressive dealer incentives.

September 2025 delivered a record 72,779 EV registrations, the strongest monthly performance since 2020. But that success came at enormous cost to manufacturers. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders noted that growth was “driven by substantial industry support” e “unsustainable discounting” to meet the government’s Zero Emission Vehicle mandate requiring 28% EV sales in 2025.

Brankin acknowledged the disconnect between policy targets and market reality. “When that [target] was set a number of years ago, the outlook for demand around electric vehicles was buoyant and there seemed to be momentum behind electric vehicles,” she told the BBC. “What we’re seeing now is that customer demand is not in line with that ambition.”

Ford employs approximately 6,000 workers in the UK, with major operations at Dagenham (diesel engine production until 2030) and Halewood (transmission manufacturing). The company hasn’t manufactured complete vehicles in Britain since 2013.

The ZEV Mandate Squeeze

The UK’s Zero Emission Vehicle mandate creates additional pressure on manufacturers. The regulation requires 80% of new car sales to be EVs by 2030, with significant fines for non-compliance.

Current performance falls well short. Even with September’s record volumes, the year-to-date EV market share of 22.4% trails the 28% target for 2025. Ford benefits from the £3,750 Electric Car Grant for its E-Tourneo Courier and Puma Gen-E models, positioning the company among just two brands eligible for the incentive.

Brankin urged the Chancellor to retain company car tax benefits that currently make EVs attractive to fleet buyers.

“Electric vehicles in some instances have gone from being a great thing to being something that we’re trying to push people into,” she said, highlighting how the market dynamic has shifted from pull to push.

The Ford Dagenham diesel engine plant—once Europe’s largest car factory when first built—faces an uncertain future. The facility will continue diesel production until 2030, employing approximately 1,800 workers. Brankin said Ford has made no decisions about the plant’s future beyond that date.

“We’re working really hard on what the next life of Dagenham looks like,” she said, “but there was nothing that we’ve settled on at the moment.”

EVXL’s Take

Let’s be absolutely clear about what’s happening here: Ford’s UK chief is opposing taxation on EVs while her company loses $1.4 billion per quarter trying to sell electric vehicles that can’t compete even with massive government subsidies. This isn’t a policy debate—it’s an admission that legacy automakers built EV strategies requiring perpetual taxpayer life support.

The U.S. market just provided the definitive test case. When the September 30 federal tax credit expired, Ford’s EV sales collapsed 24% in a single month. The F-150 Lightning faces potential cancellation with production halted indefinitely. Ford’s Model E division lost $1.4 billion in Q3 2025 alone, bringing cumulative EV losses to approximately $13 billion since 2023.

Brankin’s warning about UK taxation destroying demand is entirely correct—but that correctness exposes Ford’s fundamental failure. If your EV business model collapses the moment subsidies end or taxes begin, you never had a viable business model. You had a government-dependent shell game transferring taxpayer money to shareholders while pretending to build the future.

Compare Ford’s subsidy addiction to competitors taking different approaches. While Ford lobbies against UK EV taxes and loses billions quarterly, Toyota just invested $912 million in U.S. hybrid production—creating actual jobs making vehicles customers want to buy without needing government bribes. Meanwhile, BYD overtook Tesla in UK sales with genuinely affordable EVs that compete on price and features rather than subsidies.

Ford CEO Jim Farley has acknowledged the existential threat. He warned that Chinese automakers could “put us all out of business” with their manufacturing capacity and cost advantages. That assessment is correct—but the problem isn’t Chinese competition. The problem is that Ford spent a decade building EVs that require $7,500 in taxpayer subsidies to find buyers while Chinese manufacturers developed vehicles that actually work in real markets.

The UK finds itself facing the same choice the U.S. just confronted: continue subsidizing legacy automakers’ failures indefinitely, or force the market to reality and watch domestic manufacturers collapse. Brankin is right that the proposed 3-pence-per-mile tax will damage EV demand. She’s also inadvertently right that it will expose which manufacturers built genuine EV businesses versus subsidy-harvesting operations disguised as electrification strategies.

European car sales data from October 2025 shows the pattern clearly: plug-in hybrid sales surged 34.7% while pure EV adoption stalled, Tesla’s market share collapsed, and BYD exploded 398% year-over-year. Consumers vote with their wallets when forced to pay full price, and they’re increasingly choosing either hybrids that actually work or Chinese EVs that actually compete on value.

The broader context makes Ford’s position even more untenable. The company’s strategic retreat from EVs included canceling the three-row electric SUV, losing $40,525 per EV sold in 2023, and facing battery oversupply as demand fails to materialize. When aluminum ran short after the Novelis fire, Ford immediately prioritized gas-powered F-150 production over the electric Lightning—revealing where management actually sees sustainable profits.

Brankin’s warning deserves serious consideration despite Ford’s failures. Adding taxation to a fragile market will damage adoption—the U.S. experience proves that unequivocally. But the solution isn’t perpetual subsidies for manufacturers that lose billions quarterly despite government support. The solution is letting the market identify which companies actually built competitive EVs versus which ones built subsidy-harvesting schemes.

Ford’s Dagenham plant will build diesel engines until 2030 with no clear plan beyond that date. The company hasn’t manufactured complete vehicles in Britain since 2013. The UK operations exist primarily to sell imported vehicles and maintain historic facilities with uncertain futures. That’s not an industrial strategy—it’s managed decline interrupted by occasional requests for government assistance.

The question for UK policymakers isn’t whether EV taxation will damage demand. It will. The question is whether continuing to subsidize automakers that lose $1.4 billion quarterly on EVs represents better policy than forcing market discipline and letting genuinely competitive manufacturers win. The U.S. chose market discipline on September 30, and the results validated every warning from executives like Brankin while simultaneously exposing which companies built real EV businesses versus subsidy-dependent facades.

Six months from now, we’ll know whether the UK learns from America’s experiment or repeats it in reverse—implementing taxes instead of ending subsidies, but achieving the same demand destruction and revealing the same underlying truth about which manufacturers can actually compete.