Debunking the Myth: UK Electric Car Market Surges Despite Industry Claims of Crisis
Fiat UK Managing Director, Damien Dally, said “the electric car market in this country is in real jeopardy .. demand for electric vehicles is waning and we're sleepwalking into an electric vehicle crisis.”
Vauxhall UK's managing director, James Taylor, said that the “Spring Budget has not delivered the acceleration needed to stop the UK’s transition to electric vehicles from stalling.”
The Daily Telegraph has variously warned that the UK EV market has trimmed, slowed, stalled, declined and plunged.
Are any of these things true? Fortunately, no.
As our State of the Switch report 2024 shows, 2023 saw a record number of battery electric vehicles registered in the UK, in a period of growth for the whole car market. The total number of EVs registered in the UK over 2023 was 297,890. This is 18.5% higher than the number registered in 2022 which stood at 251,406.
As the chart below shows, battery electric vehicle sales in the third month of 2023 outstripped the number sold in the whole of 2019. By May 2023 battery electric vehicle sales had surpassed the number of sales for the whole of 2020. By August 2023, sales had matched those for the whole of 2021, and by October, the whole of 2022.
Total cumulative sales of BEVs in from 2019 to 2023
What about the first 2 months of 2024, could we find some hopeful signs of trimming, slowing, stalling, declining and plunging there? Sorry to be the gatherer of good news, but no.
January 2024 battery electric car sales were up 22% on January 2023, whilst February 2024 sales were up 28% on the same month last year.
None of this is to say that the UK’s policy regime is ideal.
The headline of delaying the switchover to zero emissions vehicles from 2030 to 2035 was poor public messaging, even if the reality is that a maximum of 20% of the vehicles sold in 2030 can be ICE vehicles, and that percentage will tail off in subsequent years. The differential rates of VAT for public and domestic charging is a massive inequity, which will punish lower earners. Much more can be achieved with smart incentives to encourage higher mileage drivers to switch.
But for automakers to join the Telegraph in spreading misinformation by talking down the popularity of their own product is a little short-sighted.