Electric Vehicle (EVs) sales in the UK rose 30% year-on-year in September from 20,800 to 29,600.
As the country queued for fuel and sales of Electric Vehicles jumped, the sales of Diesel cars unsurprisingly crashed 72% over the same period.
“September is often a bumper month for EV sales, but even these statistics surprised us. Twice as many people bought electric cars as bought diesel cars, showing the ongoing slump in sales of polluting diesels,” said Ben Nelmes, Head of Policy and Research at New AutoMotiv.
“In many UK cities – Newcastle, Bristol, London, Oxford, Cambridge and Birmingham, the figures suggest that 1 in 5 cars bought are fully electric. That is good news for the millions of people living in areas with illegally high levels of air pollution.
“Our data show that the market for EVs is incredibly diverse, with a growing number of brands and models bringing electric cars to market. Among the brands that are fastest to electrify, Jaguar tops the table for the third month in a row – a British success story that we can all celebrate.”
The expansion in the number of charging points is also attributed to helping the number of EVs sales in the UK.
One of the biggest drawbacks of buying an EV previously was the lack of range of the vehicles and the scarcity of charging points.
The is know as ‘range anxiety’ due to the fear drivers would have when setting out on long journeys and would only use their electric vehicles for shorter journeys as opposed to some of their more demanding trips.
Although these are still a factor in owning an EV, situation has improved dramatically and there are now 44,000 public charging points across the UK.
According to New Automotive, if you are on a UK motorway or A road, you are now never more than 25 miles away from a charging point.
