SWT_USER
Member
Yes - should add this is the pre facelift version of the ID3 too (23 plate) - it may have improved now.
All true - and that's fine really. There isn't much need for chargers faster than that away from service stations.
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Do you think that the UK switching to electric vehicles is realistic?
- Thread starter MattA7
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py_megapixel
Established Member
perhaps they mean kWh per hour
Snow1964
Established Member
Just checked and May car sales figures are out.
Of the 150,070 new cars, 32,078 (21.8%) were electric
and 17898 (11.9%) were PHEV
So averaging just over 1000 new electric cars each day, which is going to be close to 400,000 new electric cars in 2025
www.smmt.co.uk
So the original question (the title of the thread) is starting to not seem unrealistic based on recent growth rates.
Of the 150,070 new cars, 32,078 (21.8%) were electric
and 17898 (11.9%) were PHEV
So averaging just over 1000 new electric cars each day, which is going to be close to 400,000 new electric cars in 2025
UK New Car Registration Data - Latest Figures & Statistics | SMMT
Discover the latest UK car registration data: new car registration statistics, the number of cars in the UK, and more.
www.smmt.co.uk
So the original question (the title of the thread) is starting to not seem unrealistic based on recent growth rates.
As a Born driver I highly recommend it as a car. If your budget allows do try to stretch to a post facelift version though. It fixes most of the problems with the awful infotainment system (you’re looking for a car with software version 5.x, not 3.x) which is by far and away the biggest problem/issue, plus it has backlit buttons, faster charging, slightly bigger battery, a more efficient and powerful electric motor (APP550), and the large battery model is a 5 seater rather than a 4 seater.
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We have a Renault Zoe and I would upgrade to the 5 in a heatbeat. Looks amazing and I have to say (touchwood) the Zoe has been a pretty decent car over our ownership.
The Renault 5 deserves to become a best seller, and certainly will become a classic as a small, efficient and affordable EV.
Sadly it was just a bit too cramped for us, but the 4 looks like it solves that issue - and it looks great too. Sadly the price jumps quite a bit.
Sadly it was just a bit too cramped for us, but the 4 looks like it solves that issue - and it looks great too. Sadly the price jumps quite a bit.
It's perhaps worth mentioning that Octopus this week announced its first 'proper' (not trial) Vehicle to Grid (V2G) offering and it's just the beginning of what will be a huge change in both the EV and home battery market.
While I was told last year it would launch in April with the Renault 5, it seems that Octopus has kicked off a bit later with a deal with BYD and you can get a BYD car, electric car charger (that supports V2G) and free EV charging for the term of your agreement (there is a fair usage policy of around 650 miles per month).
You will get to have your car charged free every day, and also allow part of your car battery to export to the grid to help balance it - and it seems that if you have a home battery or solar and already export, you can still get paid for that export also. For many, this means a negative electricity bill each month, and now the car charging is free too (and no need to pay £30 a month for the flat rate plan they recently launched).
Other cars will follow (almost certainly the Renault 5 won't be long to be added) and indeed, it looks from the FAQ that you'll also be able to get a V2G charger fitted yourself and use it with compatible cars as they come - so you don't have to pay the combined fee. Still, a brand new car with 'free' mileage for £300 a month is going to be very tempting for many. A real 'set and forget' offering that compares well with the cost of many new cars (ICE and EV) purchased separately (I am excluding the fantastic deals you get from time to time via leaseloco and the like on bigger and more expensive cars, or the second hand market).
Link to Octopus Press Release for bundle: https://octopus.energy/press/octopu...n-with-all-inclusive-car-and-charging-bundle/
Link to Octopus Press Release for V2G tariff: https://octopus.energy/power-pack/
While I was told last year it would launch in April with the Renault 5, it seems that Octopus has kicked off a bit later with a deal with BYD and you can get a BYD car, electric car charger (that supports V2G) and free EV charging for the term of your agreement (there is a fair usage policy of around 650 miles per month).
You will get to have your car charged free every day, and also allow part of your car battery to export to the grid to help balance it - and it seems that if you have a home battery or solar and already export, you can still get paid for that export also. For many, this means a negative electricity bill each month, and now the car charging is free too (and no need to pay £30 a month for the flat rate plan they recently launched).
Other cars will follow (almost certainly the Renault 5 won't be long to be added) and indeed, it looks from the FAQ that you'll also be able to get a V2G charger fitted yourself and use it with compatible cars as they come - so you don't have to pay the combined fee. Still, a brand new car with 'free' mileage for £300 a month is going to be very tempting for many. A real 'set and forget' offering that compares well with the cost of many new cars (ICE and EV) purchased separately (I am excluding the fantastic deals you get from time to time via leaseloco and the like on bigger and more expensive cars, or the second hand market).
Link to Octopus Press Release for bundle: https://octopus.energy/press/octopu...n-with-all-inclusive-car-and-charging-bundle/
Link to Octopus Press Release for V2G tariff: https://octopus.energy/power-pack/
telstarbox
Established Member
More anecdata from me - the Honda car showroom in my town has closed and been replaced with a BYD one.
The only thing I am disappointed with regarding BYD is that they're a Chinese company that has a thing to learn about how things work globally. Every Chinese firm goes through this in the early days. I remember when Huawei did the same, and the parent company for Oppo/OnePlus/Realme etc in the tech space.
BYD has been threatening people who say not-nice things with legal action, and asking for editorial control from people attending BYD events and getting cars to review. That's commonplace in China, but there's no place for that level of control here.
It actually undermines their reputation, and I'm fairly certain their cars are good enough to not need them trying to control the media.
One person has come out to talk about it here, while I know influencers working in tech who are dabbling in the EV space (there's more traction (sic) in electric vehicles, green energy etc than smartphones these days) who are also concerned about how the car industry treats the media in general. Unlike tech products that most people could afford to buy to review if they have a decent income from their platform, few can get a car so easily - and so it becomes access journalism where you need to say nice things to have access to future cars.
And before this goes WAAAY off topic, let me point out that this isn't anything specific to EVs but all cars.. it's just that EVs are obviously getting the most press attention these days for obvious reasons. I've advocated for an EV future for years, but won't turn a blind eye to what BYD or others might do as they enter the UK and European market.
With an absolutely massive lead due to their hybrid electric cars the Japanese seem to have completely lost the plot in this transition, and look completely doomed to failure. While you can make criticisms of the European and American car makers there are at least a range of different EVs from all the major brands, at a generally acceptable price and quality point. The Japanese however…. Even Nissan are having to pin all their hopes on the new Leaf and it doesn’t particularly stand out in a competitive market segment.
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It's very odd how Japan got so complacent and got left behind.
Toyota was convinced BEVs weren't the future, which meant the anti EV brigade used this as 'proof' that batteries aren't the future.
The problem is that Hydrogen isn't the future, and EVs are now increasing in sales month by month.
Meanwhile Hydrogen is clearly not happening for cars, and increasingly it doesn't seem realistic for buses, coaches or lorries - so now they look very stupid.
Toyota was convinced BEVs weren't the future, which meant the anti EV brigade used this as 'proof' that batteries aren't the future.
The problem is that Hydrogen isn't the future, and EVs are now increasing in sales month by month.
Meanwhile Hydrogen is clearly not happening for cars, and increasingly it doesn't seem realistic for buses, coaches or lorries - so now they look very stupid.
Yes it is a great mystery to me how so many seemingly competent organisations / individual engineers were* absolutely convinced that hydrogen was going to be the answer rather than batteries. Despite all the evidence about system efficiency and battery development that showed precisely the opposite.
* some seemingly still are. A friend of mine who is an engineer who works for a sports car company. He told we with unswervable confidence only a year ago that battery vehicles were a passing phase, and that ‘very soon’ we’d all be switching over to hydrogen. We had a friendly disagreement over that, and he didn’t like it when I started referring to certain laws of physics!
Whilst I can understand why some may have a preference for the idea of Hydrogen, the reality is that many of those advantages just aren't so big a deal in the real world.
Charge time isn't such a waste, as you need to stop for a break yourself, and unlike hydrogen you can let the EV change whilst you do other things.
EV charging points are increasing rapidly, if I'm remembering the numbers correctly the number of public chargers rose by around 35% and of all public chargers 1 in 5 are 50kW or higher.
With the rapid rise in solar panels people can do "free miles" from their home chargers if they are home during the day (that may not be many, but it's also not zero).
Japan relies heavily on imported lithium for its battery industry. The Japanese government has been betting big on hydrogen, but a lot of projects have focused on vehicles and heating, which hydrogen is pretty terrible at.
I think there are a few factors:
- They've heard "hydrogen is the future" but have never questioned it.
- They've grown up watching Top Gear throw EVs under the bus for the sake of entertainment and don't want to admit that the show is entertaining, but not particularly factual.
- They like complexity, and a battery+inverter+motor is just not as interesting.
Supporting hydrogen is difficult if you start thinking it through...
Personal favourite is the "lack of EV charging infrastructure", ignoring that hydrogen has even less and is much more difficult to build.
That's the thing.
Most homes (more than 50%) have off road parking so should be able to use home charging, which can be as little as 6-7p - or even free with some new schemes (see above with Octopus) and on the road, it seems that a price war is now heating things up with places once charging 70-90p now offering charging for as little as 40-50p.. while Electroverse is now offering plunge pricing when electricity is cheap - with discounts of 10% (and potentially more) if you charge between, say, 11am and 3pm.
I hope this continues, as lots of companies are finding people are shopping around and simply not using expensive chargers no matter how nice the environment is.
Finally, given cars are parked most of the time, people are realising that charging when they get to their destination (e.g. hotel, shopping mall) is even easier still. Park up, plug in, do your thing for 3-10 hours or whatever and unplug when you get back. No need to find a traditional petrol station at all.
Hydrogen is basically keeping the petrol station alive and serving the interest of the fossil fuel companies, banking on people being used to the idea (not surprising as we've all done it for decades) that you drive to a place and go to a pump to put a fuel in a tank.
This is why you always have people comparing the 3-5 minutes to fill a tank with 20+ minutes to charge. They haven't realised that you mostly aren't going to be going to a static location to charge at all.
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A Google search suggests there are 16 Hydrogen stations, but I think it's less than that for car users (I think most are designed for the likes of HGVs). I am sure I read once that there are 4 for cars? (don't quote me on that - but in the grand scheme of things, does it even matter?)
They aren't even spread evenly around the country, although even if they were the gaps between each one would still be huge.
It's laughable to think Hydrogen is the future as the last time I looked, it seemed they were closing existing stations and not opening new ones.
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Snow1964
Established Member
Latest UK sales figures from SMMT (Society of motor manufacturers and traders)
May 2025
Battery Electric new car sales 32,738 (21.8% of sales)
Plug in electric cars 17,898 (11.9%)
Hybrid electric cars 20,351 (13.6%)
Year to date Jan-May
BEV 177,487 (20.9%j
PHEV 85,657 (10.1%)
HEV 122,942 (13.1%)
So roughly a third of new cars now electric, or plug in, with another 13% as part electric, so now 47% not conventional fossil fuel
www.smmt.co.uk
With recent launch of many new smaller electric cars (Renault 5, Hyundai Inster, Ford puma-E etc), and lots more new fully electric small cars due in next few months, it could easily jump from 47% to over half by end of year.
May 2025
Battery Electric new car sales 32,738 (21.8% of sales)
Plug in electric cars 17,898 (11.9%)
Hybrid electric cars 20,351 (13.6%)
Year to date Jan-May
BEV 177,487 (20.9%j
PHEV 85,657 (10.1%)
HEV 122,942 (13.1%)
So roughly a third of new cars now electric, or plug in, with another 13% as part electric, so now 47% not conventional fossil fuel
Electric Vehicle (EV) Data | UK Electric Vehicle Registration Statistics | SMMT
The latest UK electric vehicle (EV) data. Get key insights on the latest electric car, van, truck and bus registration figures and statistics in the UK.
www.smmt.co.uk
With recent launch of many new smaller electric cars (Renault 5, Hyundai Inster, Ford puma-E etc), and lots more new fully electric small cars due in next few months, it could easily jump from 47% to over half by end of year.
Latest UK sales figures from SMMT (Society of motor manufacturers and traders)
May 2025
Battery Electric new car sales 32,738 (21.8% of sales)
Plug in electric cars 17,898 (11.9%)
Hybrid electric cars 20,351 (13.6%)
Year to date Jan-May
BEV 177,487 (20.9%j
PHEV 85,657 (10.1%)
HEV 122,942 (13.1%)
So roughly a third of new cars now electric, or plug in, with another 13% as part electric, so now 47% not conventional fossil fuel
Electric Vehicle (EV) Data | UK Electric Vehicle Registration Statistics | SMMT
The latest UK electric vehicle (EV) data. Get key insights on the latest electric car, van, truck and bus registration figures and statistics in the UK.
With recent launch of many new smaller electric cars (Renault 5, Hyundai Inster, Ford puma-E etc), and lots more new fully electric small cars due in next few months, it could easily jump from 47% to over half by end of year.
It wasn't that long ago that just petrol was still around 50% of new car sales (January 2022).
Latest UK sales figures from SMMT (Society of motor manufacturers and traders)
May 2025
Battery Electric new car sales 32,738 (21.8% of sales)
Plug in electric cars 17,898 (11.9%)
Hybrid electric cars 20,351 (13.6%)
Year to date Jan-May
BEV 177,487 (20.9%j
PHEV 85,657 (10.1%)
HEV 122,942 (13.1%)
So roughly a third of new cars now electric, or plug in, with another 13% as part electric, so now 47% not conventional fossil fuel
Electric Vehicle (EV) Data | UK Electric Vehicle Registration Statistics | SMMT
The latest UK electric vehicle (EV) data. Get key insights on the latest electric car, van, truck and bus registration figures and statistics in the UK.
With recent launch of many new smaller electric cars (Renault 5, Hyundai Inster, Ford puma-E etc), and lots more new fully electric small cars due in next few months, it could easily jump from 47% to over half by end of year.
Seen two Puma-Es near me and they look quite cute with the 365-like smiley face!
There are some great cars to buy this year and many more to come and given the fact I wouldn't recommend buying new (different if leasing) then you need to allow for a bit of time for some of these to become available at a nice discount. That could be as little as 3 or 4 months for ex-demo models.
2025 has been a real turning point in car choice, including smaller and more affordable models more relevant for most low mileage drivers.
Snow1964
Established Member
It rather depends on how long intend to keep the car, and discount off new price, sometimes can be cheaper than leasing.
I have just changed to electric (2.8 year old CUPRA Born, which cost just under half its new price). But my previous car (Seat Arona Xcelence lux) I kept for nearly 7 years.
The Arona was new from a broker, got £4k off its list price of £23.5k (it is now nearer £28k new), sold it for £8.6k, so depreciation worked out at about average of £130 per month. There is no way I could have leased it for only £130/month.
Ex demo models currently don't make sense in many cases, I looked at one, but interest rate was about 9%, but new came with few thousand deposit contribution and 0%, so over 3 or 4 years the demo (with its expensive finance) cost £2-3k more than the new one. They do make sense if you have the money saved and not going to finance it, but even then if new offer is strong enough, and get 0% then could leave funds in high interest account until balloon payment due. Really need to look at total amount due, not just monthly payments (ignoring deposits and final amounts) to compare.
Checking out parking online for a trip I will be making next month I noticed that while parking was reasonably priced for the intended 2+ hour visit I would need to return and move the car within 60 minutes if charging. Not an issue for me as I won't be replacing my ICE vehicle for at least another year.
The problem with destination charging is that cars need to be blocking chargers for the duration of a visit.
Harpers Tate
Established Member
- Joined
- 10 May 2013
- Messages
- 1,869
True "destination chargers" are typically low powered AC units from which most cars can only draw 7kW. (Some units offer 11 or 22kW - to those cars that can utilise 3 phases). And they are often provided several to a site - with the absolute intention that you can visit wherever it is for a relatively prolonged period whilst the slow charge takes place. Because they are low powered, a larger number of outlets can be offered for a given power supply. There are 30 x 7kW units at the nearby large shopping mall, for example.
Higher powered DC units (50kW and up) are not intended for prolonged visits.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It's not necessarily a problem if you design the system appropriately. If the destination is one where you typically park all day and can't necessarily return to shuffle cars around at once (e.g. a railway station or office car park), providing at least half the spaces if not more with a 13A slow charger would be better than providing a small number of very fast chargers, and would be possible using the same supply. At a supermarket where people only spend an hour or two there and most people won't want to charge at all, a smaller number of fast chargers make more sense.