16/06/2026
𝗚𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁’𝘀 𝗘𝗩 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗯𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗺𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗰𝘆𝗰𝗹𝗲𝘀- 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗮𝗻𝘀𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗻𝗼𝘄.
Reports that the Government is set to water down ZEV mandate targets for cars and vans are an admission that blanket EV compulsion was set without regard to market reality. The Motorcycle Action Group says riders are owed the same clarity — and they have been waiting nearly four years for it.
In July 2022 the Government opened a consultation proposing to ban the sale of new petrol-powered motorcycles, mopeds and other L-category vehicles — with some categories facing a 2030 deadline. The consultation closed in September 2022. More than three and a half years later, the Government’s own website still reads: “We are continuing to analyse the feedback we have received. A full government response will be published in due course.”
The consultation’s title was itself revealing. The Government called it an inquiry into ‘L-category vehicles’ — a regulatory classification that no rider uses to describe themselves. Motorcyclists ride motorcycles. Moped users ride mopeds. L-category is the language of officialdom. A proposal with the reach and consequence of a ban on every new petrol motorcycle sold in the UK was framed in terms that most of those affected would not have recognised as applying to them.
No response has come. No date has been given. Riders have been left in deliberate limbo — not subject to a ban, but never formally free of one.
MAG’s position is unambiguous. Government compulsion over what engine riders can buy is wrong. The technology is not ready. The infrastructure does not exist. The market has not demanded it. The L-category consultation should now be formally closed — with a clear Government commitment that no ban on the sale of new petrol-powered motorcycles will be introduced.
Today’s reports make that ask straightforward. If the Government accepts that ZEV mandate targets for cars were set at levels the market cannot meet, the same logic applies with even greater force to motorcycles — a sector where electric alternatives remain limited, expensive and range-constrained, and where the transition timescales that have proved unrealistic for the car industry are even less realistic. The difference is that car makers at least received a policy. Riders received a consultation, and then silence.
“Bin the ban. The Government is finally admitting what we’ve been saying for years — you cannot bully people into buying vehicles the market isn’t ready to deliver. For cars, that message has apparently got through. For motorcycles, riders have been left hanging since 2022, waiting for an answer to a consultation that should never have been opened in the form it took. We don’t want a watered-down version of a ban. We don’t want a deferred ban. We want this threat to motorcycling formally withdrawn — and we want it done now.”
Neil Liversidge, National Chairman, Motorcycle Action Group
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Read and share this press release on the MAG website:
https://mag-uk.org/governments-ev-climbdown-must-extend-to-motorcycles-close-the-unanswered-consultation-now/
