Electric Cars:what's available?

[mickthemaverick]

To me that looks like a meshing of an Audi TT's top on the body of an MG ev. Nice colour though!

[myglaren]

One in 10 cars sold in UK made in China
Mostly electric.

[PaulC5]

Another area where China is taking over the world. By selling cheap they prevent other countries developing their own industry.

Many electric cars look similar, the only ones I tend to notice are Tesla as they overtake on roundabouts (there are a lot around Lincoln), other makes may be doing the same but are unrecognisable.

[Gibbo2286]

A six year old video brought up today along with the announcement that EVs took one in four of the new car sales in June.

[bobins]

Is it actually 1 in 4 car sales or 1 in 4 car registrations, as they are not the same thing.

[Gibbo2286]

The UK’s electric vehicle transition has surged into a higher gear, with June 2025 marking a record-breaking month for battery electric vehicle (BEV) registrations. One in every four new cars sold was a BEV, which captured a landmark 24.9% of the new car market.

[mickthemaverick]

I think what bobins is driving at is what proportion of the new BEV car registrations were sold to owners and what proportion are registered but still sitting on dealer forecourts or hire fleets?

[bobins]

Dealers are having to register BEVs to get the numbers up to the government mandated levels of registrations, but the reality is - as Mick says - some / a lot of them sit unused and un-bought on back lots and dealer's yards.
Pushing the logic to breaking point - a dealer could register 1000 cars but not sell a single one of them.
I'd be interested to know how many BEVs were sold to ordinary members of the public who had a completely free choice on what sort of vehicle to buy.

[Gibbo2286]

That's really no different to petrol and diesel cars Bobins, dealers always registered some then sold them off a bit cheaper as 'demonstrators' to keep their dealership quota up. I can recall that right back to when we were selling Austin A30s and Morris Minors.
As for private buyers it's always been only about 18% who bought 'new' cars the rest bought used after they filtered into the used car market at two or three years old.

[bobins]

That's not quite comparing like for like though. Manufacturers are mandated to sell a certain number of BEVs each year -

ZEV targets - drive-electric.co.uk

https://www.drive-electric.co.uk/news/z ... ions-2025/


The current fine for each non compliant vehicle they sell when not meeting that target is currently £12k per car or £15k per van.... though there's an awful lot of trading and borrowing against future sales that's allowed. As you can see though, the manufacturers are highly incentivised to 'sell' enough BEVs to avoid the fines.
Yes, dealers have always registered cars in advance of selling them to hit dealer quotas, but registering BEVs to avoid the ZEV fines is a whole different ball game and therefore success stories about how many BEVs have been 'sold' - (although registered is more accurate) should be taken with an ENORMOUS pinch of salt as they can't be relied upon to show the retail appetite for them.

[mickthemaverick]

As ever with statistics so much depends on sample sizes. To illustrate that point I currently have a circle of around 50 family and friends who I see regularly and am aware of their activities. Of those 50, 7 that I can think of have bought new cars in the last 12 months, 2 egged on by a 3rd!! Of those 7 cars 5 are petrol, 1 is diesel and 1 is a BEV. Make of that what you will !