Despite spin claiming otherwise (1), the stark reality is that 88.4% of car buyers in 2021 chose a car with a petrol or diesel engine (2).
Those talking up electric car sales frequently combine fossil fuel driven vehicles with some form of electric assistance, even where the electric contribution is tiny.
Only 11.6% chose pure electric cars. This clearly shows the public are voting with their cash with 88.4% buying cars that will be banned from sale under Boris Johnson’s plans. (3).
The ABD calls for the petrol/diesel ban to be scrapped.
ABD spokesman Brian Macdowall said: “Clearly there is a market for electric cars, but what the consumer wants and deserves is choice. If EVs are so good they will be chosen naturally. Currently that is not the case. Forcing drivers to buy electric is not an acceptable course of action.”
ENDS
(1) It is common practice for those atempting to talk up EV success to lump together any form of petrol or diesel car with some form of EV assistance with pure EVs when presenting sales figures (MHEV, PHEV, HEV), even if the electric contribution is tiny. The ‘X% of vehicles sold with a plug’ is used to similar effect.
(2) BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) sales 190,727. Total vehicle sales (petrol/diesel hybrids + pure petrol/diesel) 1,647,181.
https://www.smmt.co.uk/2022/01/covid-stalls-2021-uk-new-car-market-but-record-ev-sales-show-future-direction/
(3) Cars powered solely by petrol/diesel are due to be banned from sale by 2030, hybrids with petrol/diesel power by 2035.
It’s crazy to force people to dump their petrol cars and go electric. I know some people who have gone back to petrol from electric because they don’t live up to their hype. There is no price incentive to buy one and by the time I’ve got my running costs back the car will be too old and I will require a new one, hence more expense. We should be given a choice to keep petrol and the cost of fuel should be greatly reduced. Try getting America, China , India and Asia to go carbon neutral. It’s just a pipe dream and not achievable. If they really wanted this it wouldn’t cost the average person any more. It’s just a money making scam.
Surely the green, fully-renewable, answer is to generate liquid fuels by extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and using the Sun’s energy? If the conversion plants are in hot countries, then much of that energy will not heat up the ground thus reducing global warming.( e.g. Prometheus Fuels)
A total of 173,000 terawatts (trillions of watts) of solar energy strikes the Earth continuously. That’s more than 10,000 times the world’s total energy use (26 Oct 2011), according to an online search https://www.capp.ca/energy/world-energy-needs/.
It states that more oil is used for petrochemicals than transport!