- ZEV Mandate ‘subsidising’ Chinese OEMs
- Used car ‘middle ground’ shrinking
- Retailers help Renault to fleet high
- Keyloop profit falls £10m
- WEEK AHEAD: Bank of England interest rate decision
- Arnold Clark widow is auto industry’s biggest taxpayer
- High earners losing out on pension tax relief
- Ford holds talks with Xiaomi over EVs
- Short sellers attack Carvana
- OPINION: Berman knows how bidding wars begin
ZEV Mandate ‘subsidising’ Chinese OEMs
Chinese OEMs are set to “cash in” on the UK’s ZEV Mandate after it emerged major OEMs will have to pay rivals for credits to avoid fines, reports The Sunday Telegraph.
Critics of the Mandate say it is “subsidising” the Chinese industry since many OEMs importing from China are selling a large proportion of EVs, so have a surplus of credits.
Eight OEMs, including Hyundai, JLR, Stellantis and Toyota, reportedly did not sell enough EVs to meet ZEV Mandate targets. “Four of them – Suzuki, Nissan, Mazda and Honda – are far enough behind the target that they will have to acquire credits from companies that have significantly exceeded the targets.”
“Tesla, [Geely-owned] Volvo, Polestar and Chinese manufacturers such as BYD are likely to be the biggest beneficiaries of this as the companies that have most exceeded the target,” said automotive analyst Matthis Schmidt.
“Industry is on track to meet their EV targets and last year we introduced flexibilities so manufacturers can meet these in multiple ways, not just through sales,” said the Department for Transport.
In other EV news, HSBC research has shown the average EV discount in Britain last month was 12.8%, compared to 10.2% in Germany. “British car dealers are being forced to discount electric vehicles more heavily than their German counterparts as the UK sticks to an accelerated switch to zero-emission vehicles,” reports The Sunday Times.
The model with the biggest discount was the Cupra Born, with retailers offering an average of 26.5% off its sticker price.
Used car ‘middle ground’ shrinking
Cox Automotive has observed a “stark polarisation reshaping the used car market” with buyers increasingly gravitating either to budget-friendly vehicles under £5k or premium models above £60k.
This is leading to the traditional mid-market shrinking, accosting to the new data from Cox and MarketCheck.
The traditional heartland of the used car market – vehicles priced between £5k and £15k – saw sales decline by up to 3.9% across all price brackets. It is the first sustained contraction in this core segment since the pandemic.
“We are witnessing a fundamental shift in how consumers approach the used car market. The middle ground that once defined this market is being squeezed from both directions.”
* Read more analysis from the latest Cox Automotive Insight Quarterly in the February 2026 issue of Auto Market Insight
Retailers help Renault to fleet high
Renault Group posted its strongest UK true fleet performance in more than a decade in 2025, with the Renault brand share rising from 1.6% to 2.5%, making it the fastest-growing established manufacturer in the sector. Renault attributed the success to investment in the sector including that by its retail network and new product.
Alongside Renault, Dacia doubled fleet sales and Alpine recorded the fastest premium growth. In LCVs, Renault ranked third for market share, with new electric Trafic due to open for orders later this year.
Keyloop profit falls £10m
Keyloop UK Limited’s profit before tax fell by more than £10m in the year ended December 2024, from £16.9m to £6.6m. Turnover grew slightly, from £124.9m to £126.7m. The operating margin, after direct costs, fell from 12% to 9%.
The directors said the decline was ”driven primarily by business transformation expenses and increase in labour costs driven by the transfer of ATG employees to the company”. Keyloop acquired Automotive Transformation Group in May 2024.
WEEK AHEAD
Thursday, Bank of England interest rate decision
Thursday, SMMT January new car registrations
* Have an event or announcement coming up? Let us know and we will include it for FREE
DATA INSIGHT
Arnold Clark widow is auto industry’s biggest taxpayer
£81.3m: Tax paid by Lady Philomena Clark, chair of the business founded by Sir Arnold Clark, and her family. It places them 19th in the UK’s top 100 taxpayers. Stoneacre founder Richard Teatum is 70th (£17.1m) and IM Group’s Lord Edmiston is 76th (£16m) in the Sunday Times’ 2026 Tax List.
High earners losing out on pension tax relief
£1,756: Average amount higher-rate taxpayers are missing out each year in pension tax relief. Basic-rate taxpayers automatically receive 20% tax relief on pension contributions, but higher earners paying 40% or 45% tax need to claim the money via self-assessment. Around 800k higher earners failed to claim it in 2023-24.
GLOBAL AUTO
Ford holds talks with Xiaomi over EVs
Ford has held talks with Chinese EV maker Xiaomi over forming a joint venture to build electric vehicles in the US, reports the FT which cited four sources. It has also spoken with BYD and other Chinese OEMs about collaboration in the US. Ford chief Jim Farley has previously spoken in admiration of Chinese EVs and even imported a Xiaomi SU7 for his personal use.
“This story is completely false,” said Ford in a statement. “There is no truth to it.”
Short sellers attack Carvana
The share price of online used car retailer Carvana fell 14.2% on Wednesday following a report by short seller Gotham City Research, reports the FT. It questioned related-party arrangements at the family-controlled group, and showed the operations of privately-held sister company DriveTime Automotive burned through $1bn of cash over 2023-24 – which coincided with a transformation in the profitability of Carvana that prompted a 100-fold rise in its share price.
OPINION
Berman knows how bidding wars begin
Apax’s 500p-a-share approach for Pinewood.AI has done one thing with absolute certainty this week: it has put a live price on the company in public view.
And once that happens, markets tend to get busy.
For most of the past year Pinewood’s share price has drifted in territory that, with hindsight, now looks anomalous. A low of 303p sits uncomfortably alongside a 12-month high of 555p. That spread tells its own story. This is a business the market has never quite known how to value.
Apax has effectively drawn a line through that uncertainty and said: this is worth at least £500m in equity terms.
It would be optimistic to assume they are the only people who think that.
Private equity is acutely aware of timing. Pinewood is a rare asset: potentially very profitable, sticky, deeply embedded in automotive retail operations and with significant headroom to grow. The sector is digitising fast, retailers are consolidating, and the role of DMS and data platforms is shifting from back-office utility to front-line strategic control. That is exactly the type of repositioning private equity likes to monetise.
And rarity tends to attract competition.
There is also a human factor here that should not be overlooked. Pinewood’s CEO Bill Berman has been in this film before. When he was running Pendragon, what began as interest in parts of the group turned into a three-way bidding war that ultimately saw the retailer operations sold to Lithia. He knows how these processes evolve once an asset is formally “in play”. He understands the choreography of interest, counter-interest and strategic positioning that follows the first public move.
He also knows that the first number on the table is rarely the final one.
The question is no longer whether Pinewood is for sale in theory. It is whether it is for sale now, and at what price.
Given the recent trading range, 500p looks generous compared with 303p. But it looks much less conclusive when set against 555p. That upper end suggests there are already investors who believe Pinewood’s standalone prospects justify a valuation north of Apax’s proposal.
This is why it would be surprising if Apax’s name is the only one we hear in the coming weeks.
Tristan Young
Editorial Director
Get in touch: tristan@autosunday.co.uk
ISSN 2977-6597