Electric cars face speed bumps in the race to ban petrol engines by …

Manchester-born Wayne Griffiths is a rarity in the car industry: a Briton who is not only chief executive of a big marque, but of two. Griffiths, 57, is in charge of Seat and the up-and-coming Cupra brand, both owned by Germany’s Volkswagen.

While he remains a devoted Manchester United fan, Griffiths has spent most of his career outside his home country, in Germany and Spain.

With Cupra sponsoring Barcelona, he has to be diplomatic about his footballing allegiance when he visits the Catalan team’s Camp Nou ground. But he is not so coy when discussing how the British government is treating the car industry. In short, he is not too impressed.

The UK has set a firm deadline of 2030 for banning the sale of