EV campaign group FairCharge has teamed up with Fully Charged Show to tackle “misinformation and mischief related to EVs and renewable energy adoption”.

The campaign will establish a team to correct the onslaught of EV misinformation in a factually accurate and fair way

Their new crowd-funded #StopBurningStuff campaign will work counter the raft of misinformation being peddled by some MPs and mainstream media.

The campaign, which is backed by scientists, climate ambassadors and senior industry, will establish a team to correct the onslaught of misinformation in a factually accurate and fair way – countering what they describe as oddities and inaccuracies with truth, facts and honesty.

The launch of the #StopBurningStuff project follows weeks of hate campaigns against EVs – such as The Sun’s ‘five point plan to protect drivers from a rush to net zero’ which included a call for the 2030 phase-out on new diesel and petrol cars and vans to be “delayed until the nation is prepared”.

Meanwhile, over 40 Tory MPs and peers wrote to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in August, urging him to put the deadline back until 2035 as they warned it would “do grave harm to the economy”.

Despite the pressure, the PM has stated there will be no significant changes to either the 2030 phase-out target nor the zero emissions vehicles mandate, according to The Times.

And now FairCharge and Fully Charged Show are working to “set the record straight and put an end to the culture wars that are obscuring, educated, fact-based, conversation and damaging EV adoption among the public”.

Quentin Willson, founder FairCharge, said: “This unchecked tirade of inaccurate negativity has the potential to damage the future of the UK car industry as they increase production of electric cars and invest in new vehicle and battery factories. Global capital won’t invest in the UK with such inaccurate ideological conflict raging in the media.”

Willson recently wrote to the new energy secretary urging her to support its campaigning and boost the UK’s energy independence and security.

Robert Llewellyn, founder of the Fully Charged Show, commented: “The issue with the perceived culture war on electric cars is that the UK does not exist in a bubble. All around us, developed countries are seeing electric vehicle sales grow and grow, and if the UK falls behind, then this lessens the chance we have of being beneficiaries of the investment and jobs that the transition to battery electric will bring. While more recent manufacturing announcements in the UK, from Jaguar Land Rover, Stellantis and Mini are welcome, we are still trailing behind countries on the continent, and future electric vehicle superpowers like the USA and China.”

The campaign has significant support from eco experts.

Julia Poliscanova, senior director, vehicles & supply chains, Transport & Energy, said: “T&E fully supports this campaign as the volume of misinformation continues to pile up. We are seeing increasingly desperate tactics by pockets of the laggard industry trying to derail the essential climate policies that endanger their fossil profits. The media should stand above such misinformation onslaught and do its own fact checking and due diligence.”

Dr David Bott, principal fellow, WMG, University of Warwick, added: “Climate change is happening. Huge emissions of carbon dioxide are primarily responsible. Transport contributes a significant proportion of those emissions. Electric vehicles are a viable alternative that contribute significantly less carbon dioxide emissions than petrol and diesel vehicles. Delaying the change will make the impact of climate change worse, and it is our children who will suffer.

“I have worked with those in the fields of climate change, electric vehicles and batteries, and renewable energy for over 20 years now, and I am constantly surprised by the ability of those — who should know better — to ignore the science; their imagination in finding alternative explanation of the facts, and their tenacity in pushing theories which other scientists know to be untrue. It is, quite frankly, concerning. We must not allow misinformation to become folklore. Both are fantasy, we must deal in facts. Fact.”

The campaign launches as new EY research shows that the UK has again taken the fifth spot as the best-prepared market in the world for the EV transition – but faces rising challenges around EV demand, supply and regulation that must be tackled to achieve its objectives around decarbonising transport.