Electric cars are about to overtake petrol in the UK, data shows | Hacker News Reader

Electric cars are about to overtake petrol in the UK, data shows

electrek.co

13 pointstapper23 comments

Misleading title

From the article:

> At the current pace, electric cars will outsell petrol in the UK within a year. And it could happen as soon as this December.

Not the number of cars on the road - it’s new-car sales.

For reference only 4.9% of cars on the road are fully electric, while 87.8% are petrol or diesel.

What are the remaining 7.3%? Horse-drawn buggies?

Hybrids.

Hybrids? HEV and PHEV?

Hybrids, and probably the odd CNG/LNG one. And one or two hydrogen.

And diesel. People still buy diesel cars in the UK for some reason.

The UK actually has escalating targets, so in the year they predict the crossover at 33% each in August, the BEV share for cars for the full year is mandated to be 38% (and 52% the next year).

They softened some of the enforcement but that is still the legal target currently.

It says sales will overtake ICE, but its a long way from cars on the road as another comment pointed out.

It also assumes a linear trend continues. I think that is probably true if nothing changes, but there is a lot that could change that. The most likely change be joining the EU's "made in Europe" car policy which would mean far higher tariffs on Chinese EV imports.

The UK isn't in the EU and doesn't apply tariffs on Chinese imports (unlike the EU).

The EU is trying to change this, however, and the UK may agree if it gets enough in return

The government is negotiating a new EU deal, and its very likely that joining the EU rules for cars (including tariffs) will be part of it.

Only about 12% of BEV sales in the UK are Chinese manufacturers, so this may not actually make _that_ much difference.

I did not know that. I have to admit I am surprised its that low.

On the other hand a lot of the growth in EV sales is coming from Chinese manufacturers so it will probably slow it down a bit - but less than I would have guessed.

I think it’s because “Tesla vs BYD!!!” is an interesting story for the media, whereas “VW AG continues to make vast quantities of boring cars like they have been since the 60s, only now some of them are electric” is a very boring story for the media. So you get lots of talk about BYD and Tesla, and very little mention of the boring legacy manufacturers who actually make most electric cars (in the UK and Europe; other markets are more Chinese-dominated)

The Chinese brands and Tesla are also more noticeable. When I see a VW I do not know whether it is ICE or BEV or a hybrid. When I see BYD I assume it is a BEV.

Once EVs reach a critical mass, it would become onerous to maintain an ICE vehicle. First to cave would be the second hand ice market. In few years it wouldn’t make any sense to buy anything other than a 3-5 year old EV. That will lead to collapse of factory fresh ICE cars. The ice factories will be forced toto shut/reduce production. And inverse economies of scale will bankrupt the major ice manufacturers.

There maybe a flipping point but I do not see you reasoning.

Why would the second hand market cave first? You can buy second hand ICE cars very cheap. There are lots of second had ICE cars for under £2,000 (look at places like Autotrader). Will people be able to buy five year old EVs for that price? Assuming batteries law reasonably well, I expect EVs to keep their value better than ICE cars.

its very clear at the moment that the move to BEV is being lead by new cars. The second hand market will follow because sales of new cars determine what is available second hand a few years later.

BEV sales spike every december because of manufacturer ZEV targets

Isn't that due to the UK government increasing taxes on gas cars?

It's not a good news if it's due to cars being less affordable.

The increases have mostly been on very expensive cars (> £40,000). Not much has changed for the average driver. Petrol is the cheapest it's been for a long time in real terms.

Unfortunately that £40k threshold no longer has much bearing on the "luxury" cars bracket it was supposed to signify, cars are expensive here.

They're planning a per-mile EV tax too. There's very little in the UK that's not taxed to death.

When the UK governemtn mentioned the clocks going back and getting an extra hour on X, a lot of the comments we "how many minutes will we have left of that hour after you've taxed it".

No, there have been no new taxes on ICE cars. Fuel duty (tax paid on petrol/diesel) has been reduced by a "temporary" 5p/litre since 2022 and that's been extended in October for at least another year.

I don't think any UK government would dare increase taxes on ICE cars. Hence why each year we go through the charade of "extending" the "temporary" fuel duty freeze.

Conversely EVs will pay a 3p/mile surcharge on their vehicle excise duty (eVED) beginning in April 2028. For an average user driving 8,000 miles/year this is a tax hike to EVs of £240/year. ICE cars won't be charged this as they pay fuel duty already (which works out way more than 3p/mile at pretty much any fuel efficiency).

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