More than half a million cars on UK roads are now electric or plug-in hybrids, according to new government figures. The Department of Transportation (DfT) said the “milestone” showed that Britain was “at the forefront of the electric vehicle revolution” and was an important step towards the goal that Johnson affirmed that the ban on gasoline and diesel sales was up 2030 will be postponed.
According to DfT, statistics released on May 5th show that more than 500,000 cars on UK roads are now low-emission vehicles. This is a collective term that mainly refers to electric cars and plug-in hybrids, but it can also include vehicles with hydrogen fuel cells.
The latest data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) shows that there are around 40.4 million vehicles on UK roads, including around 35.2 million cars. All of this means that despite the government’s delight in reaching this milestone, low-emission cars still make up around 1.4 percent of the cars on UK and Northern Irish roads.
Still, there are other signs of optimism for those who support an all-electric future for cars. The numbers released by the SMMT this week show that electric vehicles accounted for 6.5 percent of all new car sales in April 2021 – after just 0.9 percent in the same month of 2019.
This trend has been in motion for a number of years. In the first four months of 2021, electric vehicles made up 7.2 percent of all new car sales. Over the same period in 2020, that figure was four percent, and that was just below one percent in the first four months of 2019.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the increasing popularity of electric vehicles has made the UK the second largest EV market in Europe in Europe.
“We want to drive decarbonization on the global stage. That is why we are going further and faster to make the travel of our future as clean as possible,” he said. “With the news that the half-million mark has been reached and the UK now has the second largest EV market in Europe, it is clear that the transition to green driving is accelerating rapidly.”
And Mike Hawes, the managing director of SMMT, said he hoped more drivers would switch to electric vehicles.
“The automotive sector is changing the way we drive, investing billions in increasingly green and cleaner vehicles across the board. Every fourth model available is now ‘pluggable’,” he said. “Over half a million people are already convinced of the incredible driving experience and we hope millions more will make the switch as the UK strives to become the best place to build, buy and drive electric vehicles.”
