Consumers do seem to be embracing the need for environmentally friendly forms of transport and with 22,000 pure electric vehicles registered in November, that’s more than double the 10,345 registered in the same month last year. Battery-powered electric vehicles now account for almost a fifth of the UK car market.
The Tesla Model 3 was the third bestselling car, with 3,077 sold, and is the bestselling pure electric vehicle in the UK, according to figures produced by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).
However, the market is still being held back by chip shortages and according to AA Cars, stock levels of some vehicles are so low dealers can’t even offer a test drive!
Disruption in the production chain is expected to continue well into 2022.
The jump in EV sales should certainly be welcomed - while EV sales are up strongly those of diesel vehicles have plummeted by over 60 per cent - but while sales of EV’s are surging there are real concerns that the UK’s public charging infrastructure is failing to keep up.
More certainly needs to be done and there have been calls for binding public charger targets to be set.
According to the SMMT the ratio of electric vehicles to each public charger has reached 16 to one, and only one new charger was installed for every 52 plug-in cars registered so far this year.
That figure of 16 to one is much worse than other major economies, such as South Korea (3:1), the Netherlands (5:1), China (9:1), France (10:1), Belgium and Japan (both 13:1).
