Car manufacturers have called for urgent action to reignite the switch to electric vehicles, after sales figures showed slowing demand among ordinary motorists for battery-powered cars.
While overall UK registrations grew by 1% in April year-on-year to 134,000, the increase was caused by fleet sales, with private buyer sales down by almost 18% on last year.
Manufacturers are alarmed by slowing sales growth in battery electric vehicles, which in the first four months of 2024 have only increased market share by 0.3% from the same period in 2023, to 15.7%, despite the rapid take-up in previous years.
While the industry expects the figure to improve this year, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said that BEV sales would be below government targets of 22% of all new cars, and called for steps to “re-enthuse” buyers, including tax cuts, incentives and more chargers.>
What is the charging infrastructure like in other parts of the UK outside of London? I don’t see any on-street charge points, the multi-story car parks here have about 6 charge points combined, and I think Tesco’s has 3. Other supermarkets appear to have none.
Like a very large section of the UK, I don’t have a driveway. If these car manufacturers were actually wanting to shift EVs they would be investing in the charging networks but it appears that like most things “that’s someone else’s job”, so no-one does it.
I don’t even reach the point of caring about price, or range, when I’m more concerned about charging the thing in the first place.
I don’t have an EV, so I am probably not keeping as close an eye on it as I would be, but it isn’t great. And the price can be off-putting - they discussed this story on the radio yesterday an expert said you could pay 7p/kWh at home but ten times that amount elsewhere.