Data from the European Alternative Fuels Observatory shows that most countries are on course for the EU’s targets on public chargepoint provision - one of the very small number of laggard countries is 17 miles long and 9 miles wide, so perhaps has slightly different needs. But it doesn’t matter - the EU’s targets are too low, and we should be aiming for a figure 8 times higher invented by an automotive trade body which they’ve never evidenced. 

Those toeholds are significant. Manufacturers need to retain them and grow them, or say bài bài  to the Chinese market -25 million car sales every year, twice as many as Europe - for good. 

As reported in our latest Global EV Tracker webinar, US battery electric vehicle sales - shown below - exceeded the EU’s in the last quarter, the first time this has happened. 

Is consumer demand for EVs fading? Or is the automotive sector in such crisis that only being able to sell petrol and diesel cars for a few more years able to save it? 

It’s neither. Let’s debunk this. 

Our CEO Ben Nelmes reflects on Labour's conference in Liverpool and the prospects for the clean energy transition under Britain's new Labour government

Afflicted with the twisted ideology of “saving a lot of money”, “enjoying the driving experience” and “doing their bit for the environment”, seemingly unwanted electric cars have started to appear in driveways and on the streets, and virtue-signalling zealots have been sighted behind the wheel, disguised as ordinary members of the community. 

Five charts caught our eye, in the European automotive industry trade body’s latest statistical publication earlier this month. You can read the other 60 or so charts in the ACEA Automobile Industry Pocket Guide 2024/25.

Many more European countries than commonly thought are very exposed to the fortunes of the car industry. 

The previous blog showed how well EV take up was following an S-curve (mathematically, a logistic function), in developed markets with stable and unstable policy environments, and in emerging markets. This blog turns to the UK’s experience. 

The theory of diffusion of innovations was popularised by Everett Rogers in a book of the same name in 1962. Rogers argues that diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated over time among the participants in a social system.

Tariffs. Like, do they work? Are they working in the EU context? Should the UK follow the EU’s lead and impose them on Chinese made vehicles?

It depends on what you are trying to achieve, but if the goal is about protecting domestic manufacturers from unfair competition and accordingly grow their domestic market share, the early evidence from the divergent pathways of the UK and the EU are, respectively, no. No. And no. 

Our CEO reflects on the source of widespread belief in misinformation about the environmental impact of EVs