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

EVs missed out when India’s Finance Minister presented the Union budget for 2024-25 on 23 July. There were hopes that the Indian government would announce the details of the much anticipated FAME-III package to support the uptake of electric vehicles. But what is FAME, and what impact has it had on EV registrations to date?

To hear some parts of the media talk, EVs are solely the preserve of the tofu eating wokerati. Judging by the latest vehicle licensing statistics published earlier this week, either the wokerati have made a great exodus from their metropolitan hideouts or interest has spread to the quorn and edamame set too. 

Well, maybe novelist Angela Carter wasn’t thinking about the EV market in 35 years’ time when she wrote those words. Perhaps broadcaster and writer Clive Anderson’s words are more appropriate to a blog on the European car market and the challenge presented by the emerging markets of Asia and South America:

Private ownership of EVs hit record highs in 2023, according to our analysis of new data from the Department for Transport. Read our latest analysis of the true picture behind the headlines.

EV in Focus recently noted that while Elon Musk may demand that his firm “should be thought of as an AI or robotics company — if you value Tesla as just like an auto company… it is just the wrong framework”, Tesla no longer has the luxury of promising automated driving jam tomorrow without a near-term roadmap for growing demand for its cars.

Rather than it being the end of EVs, sales of battery electric cars are still increasing in the vast majority of markets, and in some markets extremely fast. (We are talking pure battery electric vehicles - plug-in hybrids, which are less efficient and have tailpipe emissions, exacerbating climate change, are not included.

Gov.uk published its latest quarterly report on public charge point rollout at the end of last month. Amongst the doom and gloom on EV sales (up 42,000 in the year to March 2024 on the previous 12 months, purchase costs down, savings of £1000 a year on running costs, that kind of thing), it’s good to hear that it hasn’t damaged charge point operator confidence. 

‘Clean Cars for Carers: enabling rural care workers to switch to electric cars’ New report from the climate action campaign group Possible published 1 April 2024

A lot of reports have made much of the fact that a few London boroughs have more chargers than several large metropolitan areas in the Midlands and the North. This makes great copy but overlooks that London has a lot more EVs than other cities, and very few driveways. In fact the chart above shows that public charge points are increasing steeply everywhere. Annual growth in chargepoint numbers in 2023 was 45%.