Electric cars: the road to a greener future?
The Prime Minister has confirmed plans to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030.
Boris Johnson’s scheme is part of the Government’s “green industrial revolution” to tackle climate change — but figures show that only 30% of drivers will be ready by then.
With the ban on petrol and diesel cars impending, it is clear drivers will need to make the switch to an electric vehicle in the future.
Demand for electric vehicles has increased in the last four years; in 2020 they account for over 10% of new registrations — an increase of 7% since 2016, according to Statista.
However, these figures illustrate that demand for electric cars is not high enough if new petrol and diesel engines are set to be banned in just 10 years.
An increase of 7% over four years shows that if demand continues to grow in the same pattern, by 2030 approximately only 30% of passenger car registrations in the UK will be electric.
BEVs (Battery Electric Vehicles) only account for 1.6% of the market, but hybrid electric vehicles are currently more popular, making up 4.2% of the market share.
A hybrid vehicle combines an electric motor with a petrol or diesel engine, but they too are set to be phased out by 2035.
The plan to ban petrol and diesel engines comes after transport accounted for a third of all UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2018.
With no emissions out of an exhaust, electric cars greatly reduce pollution in cities and over their lifecycle will produce 20% less emissions than the average petrol car.
