Sales of electric cars surged by nearly a quarter in 2025 in the UK compared to the year before — but the success story also spotlights the new scale and complexity of communications challenges in driving sustainable change.

There can surely be no better a yardstick of whether British people are being convinced to change their lifestyles — and take advantage of subsidies that encourage them — than the drive (pun intended) to get us to go electric with our cars.

Its enthusiasts, doubters and fence-sitters exemplify the broader public conversation going on about the economic opportunities, sacrifices and switches that a broad sustainable transformation of the UK will entail. And these are attitudes that the government, automotive industry and businesses across many sectors are watching closely.

Yet this week’s sales figures are just one factor in the bigger geopolitical, political, policy and industrial battles that are going on over the electrification of vehicles and beyond. And depending on the part companies play in it, the communications considerations in that complicated and highly-charged environment are manifold.

Yes the 2025 sales are impressive, but the auto industry also warned this week that hefty discounts to encourage motorists to go electric had become unsustainable. As the BBC piece illustrates, the sustainable transformation ‘deal’ that the government struck with car manufacturers is complex, with a clear overall policy but many caveats and stipulations that the sector may now seek to alter because of fast-changing economic and political pressures internationally.

"It needs to sell these vehicles because it has invested so heavily in them. But you need to make sure the market reflects more closely the actual level of demand," said the industry association, SMMT.

Here’s the rub: cost-pressured consumers want certainty over expensive long-term purchases, and certainty is currently in very short supply. Particularly from the world of politics, but also from large firms that have made long-term investment bets, and need market and policy steadiness in order for those to come good.

At the same time, we’re seeing turmoil within the electric vehicle sector itself, with Tesla — and its much-publicised drop in favourability given its frontman — UK sales dropping by nearly a third in the corresponding period. The overall jump in e-vehicle sales is reportedly down to the success of Chinese manufacturers — which itself is wrapped up in geopolitical uncertainty because of rising tensions between the world’s largest economies.

Beyond the UK’s shores, the Financial Times this week reported that growth of electric car sales has slowed to its lowest level since the Covid pandemic began.

Mixed signals then, and piles of uncertainty. For automotive companies, and those in other sectors using electric cars as a bellwether of consumer appetites for sustainable change, communication of strategy, investment, policy perspectives, alliances and long-term sustainability goals is actually becoming far more challenging.

It will need far broader shoulders in future, despite the positive short-term sales boost.