8:40 am, February 18, 2021
Electric cars will be outnumbering diesels on UK roads by 2030, a new survey of drivers suggests.
Not only that but zero-emission vehicles will make up a fifth of all cars – 20 per cent – by the end of the decade versus the 0.3 per cent that they currently do.
That’s according to the average responses of 12,500 drivers polled for the AA, with diesel’s share of the UK car fleet predicted to fall from 39 per cent to 17 per cent.
Petrol vehicles will probably still be the most common fuel type, although their market share is still estimated to drop from 59 per cent to 30 per cent.
Hybrid technology plus alternative fuels such as hydrogen and bio-diesel will also enjoy a boom, said the poll respondents.
If the forecast is accurate and the total size of the UK’s car fleet stays stable at 33m, that means the number of electric cars on the road will rocket from 91,000 to some 6.5m.
Selling new petrol and diesel cars and vans is to be banned from 2030, although existing vehicles will still be allowed.
On Wednesday, Ford said that it would only sell EVs in the UK and the continent by 2030. That came two days after Jaguar made the same vow about electric vehicles but from 2025.
AA president Edmund King said there was ‘clearly a desire from drivers’ to own electric cars but more had to be done to encourage their uptake.
‘Electric vehicles will play a significant role in the future. Everything is working in favour of electric cars.
‘The range of a single charge in constantly improving, the purchase and leasing prices are becoming more affordable, more models and styles are reaching the market, and investments in charge points are being made.
‘Electric vehicle technology has the ability to unlock much more than greener motoring, providing the chance to create new jobs and opportunities,’ he said.
‘More should be done to spark the EV revolution, such as scrapping the VAT on electric cars costing less than £50,000 and the construction of numerous gigafactories.’
Earlier this week, it was revealed that Coventry City Council was planning to apply to build a gigafactory that could create thousands of jobs.
