Electric Vehicles: Market Update

The Silence Of Zero-Emission Electric Driving Is Fast Drowning The Roar Of Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) Cars. And This Is Only The Beginning! The UK electric car sector could not have hoped for a better start to 2020. Since early January, there has been an unprecedented flow of encouraging news for the electric vehicle market. And we expect this to continue as we progress through 2020. Did you know an EV can be fully-charged with just £5! In early January, the Society of Motor Manufacturers And Traders (SMMT) released the new car registration update for December 2019 and the year-to-date performance. As expected, the update was not good news for diesel cars, with a continuing downward spiral in registrations. The diesel car market share was lower by 21.8% for the year i.e. another significant yearly decrease. However, electric cars and in particular, battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) performed very well. New car registrations for BEVs had increased by 144%. New car registrations for January 2020 echoed the December 2019 trend. BEV registrations were up an impressive 203.9% in January 2020. We expect BEVs to continue its robust upward trajectory in 2020 and beyond. Electric vehicles have continued to steal international headlines, with the global mainstream media fascinated by all things EV! The unveiling of the all-electric Tesla Cybertruck is an example of the global interest in the electric vehicle sector. More recent headlines like, Bill Gates acquiring the all-electric Porsce Taycan, the first BEV from the famed luxury automotive German manufacturer, Porsche, is indeed good news for electric cars. There is also a sense of increased consumer confidence in pure electric cars. The latest line-up of BEVs have an emission-free range of 200 miles (WLTP) on a single charge, with many EVs closer to 300 miles. Range anxiety, seems to be fast fading as a stumbling block to large-scale EV adoption. However, despite the increase in EV battery range, we in the UK need to continue to execute the deployment of public charging infrastructure, with a greater focus on rapid charging infrastructure. According to ZAPMAP, there are 30,740 connectors, 17,697 devices at 10,965 locations (February 2020). The ambiguity over the current plug-in car grant (PiCG) incentive has also been making news. There is no clarity as of today, on the future of the PiCG incentive, post March 2020. We at e-zoomed have been very vocal in encouraging the UK government to adopt a long-term and stable electric car incentive framework, to ensure the successful migration to battery-electric vehicles. We believe that the sector will need subsidies in place for at least another 24 months. In the meantime, we are encouraging potential EV buyers to take advantage of the current incentive offered i.e. up to £3,500.