Though governments around the world, including the Biden Administration and UK government, are pushing quite vociferously for electric vehicles to take over the auto market, consumers are evidently not overly interested them, as sales data from 2023 shows. According to data on last year’s car sales in the UK, less than a quarter of new car sales were electric vehicles, down about 8 percentage points from 2022 in that country.
News on that comes from the Daily Mail, which examined the auto purchases in the UK for 2023, and found that both the total number of electric vehicles sold and the percentage of new electric vehicles sold had decreased from 2022 to 2023.
It reports that there were a total of 314,687 new car sales in the United Kingdom in 2023. Of those, just 71,984 were electric vehicles, which means about 23 percent of the total were EVs. That is down dramatically from 2022m in which 88,910 electric vehicles, or 33 percent of the total new cars sold, were bought by UK consumers.
The news was somewhat better for electric vehicles from the business market. In the UK, businesses upgrading their vehicle fleets bought a total of 242,703 electric vehicles in 2023, the Daily Mail reports. That is up significantly from 2022, when businesses bout 178,294 electric vehicles for their car fleets.
The Daily Mail also notes that the sales data could be an issue for manufacturers, which under new UK legislation have to sell an increasingly large minimum number of electric vehicles each year to meet the UK’s net zero goals. This year, that minimum is 22 percent of new car sales, but it rises dramatically to 80 percent by 2030, a requirement that will be hard to meet if the majority of consumers remain uninterested in the vehicles.
American consumers are generally uninterested in electric vehicles as well, even if some cool ones like the Tesla Cybertruck initially garnered some public interest. In fact, unbought EVs are piling up on dealer lots and American auto sellers are urging Biden to reconsider pro-EV policies given the lack of consumer interest, doing so in an open letter to him.
Part of the letter stated, “These vehicles are ideal for many people, and we believe their appeal will grow over time. The reality, however, is that electric vehicle demand today is not keeping up with the large influx of BEVs [battery electric vehicles] arriving at our dealerships prompted by the current regulations. BEVs are stacking up on our lots.”
Continuing, it said, “Mr. President, it is time to tap the brakes on the unrealistic government electric vehicle mandate. Allow time for the battery technology to advance. Allow time to make BEVs more affordable. Allow time to develop domestic sources for the minerals to make batteries. Allow time for the charging infrastructure to be built and prove reliable. And most of all, allow time for the American consumer to get comfortable with the technology and make the choice to buy an electric vehicle.”
However, it remains to be seen if the governments of nations with consumers that lack interest in EVs will reconsider their policies, or if they will remain fully wedded to climate goals and policies that prioritize EV production and sales.
"*" indicates required fields