Electric car demand has slowed sharply in a sign that drivers are turning back to petrol.
The market share of battery electric vehicles (EVs) declined last month, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said.
EV registrations rose only 3.8pc from a year earlier, compared with a 10pc advance in the overall car market. Hybrid and petrol-powered cars showed the strongest growth.
Petrol-engine sales rose 9.2pc and accounted for more than half of the total, while plug-in hybrids saw a 37pc increase.
Clearly, the choice will have to be banned.
Oh, they’ve already done that, right? By 2035 or whatever it is?
And as well as following Orwell’s manual, they’re also implementing Brecht’s
What is the point of a plugin hybrid? The worst of both worlds.
What is the point of a plug-in hybrid? A massive tax break, if you’re a company car buyer. (Some 40% of new registrations are company cars.) The BiK rates are based on CO₂ emissions; for plug-in hybrids, these assume you make good use of the plug, so the rates are lower. Long story short, the PHEV will cost you £100/month less in tax.
If you drill down into the data, you’ll see a similar pattern for EVs. Company car buyers are snapping them up for the tax benefit; but the private market won’t touch them with a 10-foot barge pole.
@Sebalto
Horses for courses. Just because a plug-in hybrid doesn’t suit your needs doesn’t make it “the worst of both worlds.” I don’t know how typical I am but it works perfectly for me…
95% of my journeys and 65% of my mileage is on round-trips under 10 miles which rarely exceed 40mph. Last week the car reports I did 70 miles on electric and 1 mile on petrol. But maybe once a month we want/need to go further than the ~200 miles away from a charger that you could realistically expect from an electric car, and the public charging network is still too unreliable in both availability and pricing to trust, so being able to shove 400 miles of range into the car in under 5 minutes at a cost of about £75 is a handy feature. Any thoughts of changing seem to involve buying an electric car and a diesel to replace it.
AFAIK, the benefits of running on electric in a hybrid, I.e. reduced fuel consumption are negated by having to haul the battery weight around all the time which is similar to having 2 fat bastards in the back seat.
Simple physics innit?, there is a fuel & component cost to hauling any weight around, that’s why for half a century the market tried to reduce car weight.
Like most things if eco mentalists hadn’t interfered with the market, starting with catalytic convertors, lean burn petrol engines would have been far in advance of where they are now about 20 years ago.
My car is a hybrid, but without the requirement to mess around plugging it in and paying for electricity that my engine generates for free.
@Sebalto: «electricity that my engine generates for free»
Lovely!
Sorry @Sebalto, but on this blog we obey the rules of thermodynamics.
Away with yer “perpetual motion machine”.
“AFAIK, the benefits of running on electric in a hybrid, I.e. reduced fuel consumption are negated by having to haul the battery weight around all the time which is similar to having 2 fat bastards in the back seat.”
Disagree, slightly.
IF – and that if is doing some seriously heavy lifting – IF, just possibly IF electricity generation can be decarbonised, then you have decarbonised that porportion of your mileage but with a much smaller battery than the full Tesla.
I reckon 95% of our journeys and possibly > 80% of our miles are from journeys <20 miles so are almost entirely electric for us.
Thus: you get 80% of the "benefit" but with a battery that is only 20% – possibly only 10% – of the size of a full milk-float. That's a huge pareto improvement.
IF…. and only IF…. the generation is de-carbonised.
In the meantime, it's cheaper to charge at home – but that's because domestic electricity is not taxed through the roof in the way that petrol is.
@P-G…
that’s because domestic electricity is not taxed through the roof in the way that petrol is.
YET!
Ah, the Baron beat me to it….
BJ
@P-G…
that’s because domestic electricity is not taxed through the roof in the way that petrol is.
YET!
Good luck getting people to give up their gas boilers (for heat pumps) if heading in that direction!
@ Nessimmersion
I have a mild hybrid that works suprisingly well. It gets its efficiency by always running the engine at optimal efficiency. The gears revs and the torque the generator imposes are then dynamically matched to the speed you want to drive at. This results in the battery being charged for a very low increase’s in the petrol used. Then when you are doing stop start driving or accelerating hard which are activities where the weight of the car really matters and they hammer petrol consumption the electric drive is there to make them efficient.
Net Zero is a millennial cult that will disappear when the millennium is far enough back in the rear view mirror.
(fingers crossed)
I endorse all the positive comments about PHEVs, particularly the tax benefits. Back on topic, the reason EV sales are falling is that most of those for whom they’re a reasonable choice – wealthy enough to afford the extra cost; not doing silly annual mileage; and with a drive to charge them on – have already bought one. Round these parts (wealthy home counties) it seems as though every other house has a Tesla, Polestar or other EV on the drive. But nobody has two – they’ve also got an ICE for longer journeys.
“they’ve also got an ICE for longer journeys.” Aye, round here we say “they’ve still got the Porsche”.
“2 fat bastards in the back seat”: only because the car manufacturers don’t supply two treadmills as standard equipment.
. . . so being able to shove 400 miles of range into the car in under 5 minutes at a cost of about £75 is a handy feature.
A handy feature that will quickly disappear if everyone drives PHEVs that run at 70 electricks to one petril.
Nothing against you maximising your utility, but your current arrangement relies on most people not adopting your arrangement. And if most people don’t (which seems likely without force) then the saturated market for PHEVs will mean expensive or no PHEVs. So enjoy the fun of having the best of both worlds while it lasts.
There’s a couple of EVs on my street.
Ones definitely a company car, the other might be.
Everyone else is not taking up EVs.
I could use an EV for my daily commute, but I’m not getting rid of my current vehicle for something that’s going to plummet in value.
And I’m not getting an EV until they’re less shit.
. . . on this blog we obey the rules of thermodynamics.
His words were silly but if he had said his car’s regenerative braking system utilises energy that would otherwise be wasted as heat then there would have been some justified use of “free”.
Though how many people actually use such a vehicle enough to see the fuel savings outweigh the higher initial costs is another matter. An elderly near neighbour bought a new regenerative hybrid but he hardly ever took it out before finally pegging it. Felt good, I guess.
@Nessimmersion, April 5, 2024 at 8:13 am
Spot on about Cats and Lean burn, but 30 years ago not 20
@Baron Jackfield, April 5, 2024 at 10:25 am
Yes. Gov’t already on that. From xx 20xx New homes must be built with charger and separate demand management ‘smart’ meter. Same for retrofit