Under the Bonnet, driven by Haynes Pro: What progress is being made in making the UK vehicle pool more environmentally friendly?

In November 2020 the UK government announced it was bringing forward the ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035 to 2030.

The move came just 10 months after the date was last changed [from 2040] and was tied in with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s unveiling a host of initiatives that were aligned with making Britain a leader in the so-called ‘green economy’.

The Conservative Government said the proposals to accelerate the shift to zero emission vehicles could deliver support for around 40,000 new jobs in 2030; around £3bn of private investment by 2026 and savings of around five million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents to 2032 and 300 MtCO2e to 2050.

Under the proposals the sale of hybrid cars and vans would still be allowed until 2035.

The document, known as The Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution, cites that the UK is already a leading a manufacturer of electric vehicles as the home produced Nissan Leaf was the third highest selling EV in Europe in 2019.

It added there are over 100 models of EVs on the market, and by 2025 nearly as many models as with conventional petrol and diesel vehicles are expected.

“We must take advantage of the once in a generation opportunity to build a world-leading EV supply chain here in the UK and improve air quality in our towns and cities,” the government stated.

“We have committed up to £1bn to support the electrification of UK vehicles and their supply chains, including developing ‘Gigafactories’ in the UK to produce the batteries needed at scale. A single factory could employ around 2000 people in highly skilled jobs.”

Against this background we decided to look at the progress that is being made in terms of the changing shape of the British vehicle pool over the last decade, and how hybrids and EVs have helped change it.

Petrol v diesel: the past 10 years

Although the total number of UK passenger cars has grown by 20% over the last 10 years, the total number of petrol vehicles on the road has remained relatively constant at around 21 million.

The diesel passenger cars accounts for the majority of the 20% increase of vehicles on the UK roads.

Over the past four years this has started to change.  The diesel passenger car growth has also flatlined.

A snapshot of fuel type in 2010 showed that petrol cars were the most popular with 73%, followed by diesel with 26.7%. Hybrid, full electric and other fuel types accounted for the last 0.3%.

The same snapshot in 2020 highlights that petrol and diesel are still the most popular fuel types, however their percentage share of the market has shifted (59% and 39% respectively).

EV and hybrid vehicle growth

With petrol and diesel passenger vehicles remaining steady but the overall number of passenger cars on the UK roads continuing to grow these vehicle populations must be coming from another fuel type.

Electric and hybrid vehicles now account for the majority of the growth of the UK vehicle population and this continues to grow.

Hybrid, full electric and other fuel types now occupy 2% of the market.  Although in percentage terms a move from 0.3% to 2% for hybrid, full electric and other fuel types may appear relatively small, when looking at actual numbers ‘on the road’ the growth is noticeable; from under 90,000 vehicles in 2010 to nearly 800,000 vehicles by the end of 2020.

EV and hybrid vehicle take up grew by almost 300,000 vehicles in 2020.

Manufacturers electric vehicle growth

Toyota was one of the first manufactures to introduce a hybrid vehicle to the UK and it continues to dominate the number of hybrid and electric vehicles on the roads.

Overall Japanese [Honda, Mitsubishi, Nissan and Toyota] and Korean [Hyundai and Kia] manufacturers still dominate the market, but BMW, Tesla and Ford have made huge market gains in a short number of years.

However, with the announcement by the UK government ending the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the UK by 2030 it is expected that other manufacturers will quickly catch up as they introduce new models.

London and the South East has the greatest density of EV and hybrids with 15% to 20% of these vehicles located here.

The next density of these vehicles is in the North West and South West.

The rest of England is between 5% to 10% density, with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland density at less than 5%.

Correlations can be drawn to population density around the major cities and towns, typically these areas will also have better infrastructure for charging, such as points in public car parks.

To this extent demand for charging points may drive the uptake in EV, and it was no surprise that this was picked up in The Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution.

“We will invest £1.3bn to accelerate the roll out of charging infrastructure, targeting support on rapid charge points on motorways and major roads to dash any anxiety around long journeys, and installing more on-street charge points near homes and workplaces to make charging as easy as refuelling a petrol or diesel car,” the government commented.

A reduction in price was also highlighted as another factor that night help increase their penetration, and something else the report addressed.

“And while the costs of EVs are already falling, we will provide £582m to extend the plug-in car, van, taxi and motorcycle grants to 2022 to 2023 to reduce their sticker price for the consumer,” the proposals continued.

As these initiatives are rolled out and 2030 comes closer into view, it will interesting to follow the progress in EV take up and how this accelerates over the next decade.