Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

Martyn1981

Ickle bit of news on the EV charger rollout in the UK.

UK installs record number of public electric vehicle chargers

The UK has installed a record number of public electric car chargers this year, as companies race to keep up with the growing number of battery vehicles on British roads.

Nearly 6,000 new chargers were installed during the first three months of 2024, according to quarterly figures from data company Zapmap published by the Department for Transport. About 1,500 of those were rapid chargers, capable of charging a car in less than an hour.

There were just under 60,000 public chargers installed in the UK by 1 April, a 49% increase compared with a year earlier.

The number of public chargers of all speeds in the UK has doubled since the start of 2022.

JKenH

Used car market hits five year high as EVs reach record share

Increasing numbers of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are now entering the used sector, with Q1 sales up by more than two thirds (71.0%) to 41,505 – posting a new record market share of 2.1%. This makes BEVs the fastest growing powertrain as more buyers are attracted to the potential cost-saving and environmental benefits. Hybrids (HEVs) also continued to sell in greater volumes, with 74,502 changing hands in a 49.3% rise. Plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), too, grew in popularity, with sales up 42.5% to 22,065.

Conventional powertrains remained dominant in the quarter, with sales of petrol cars rising 7.7% to 1,130,396, while those of diesels fell by -1.3% to 697,718. Combined, these cars accounted for 92.9% of all transactions (1,828,114 units) with market share shrinking by just over two percentage points on Q1 2023 as more buyers move to electrified vehicles.

https://www.smmt.co.uk/2024/05/used-car-sales-q1-2024/

Please note the title and paragraphs quoted above are from the download linked in the above link. 

Edit: Once again SMMT are having a bit of trouble with their statistics. If we look back at the Q1 2023 figures we see that BEVs were 26,257 and PHEVs 16,006 which would suggest the correct % increases are 58% and 37.9%. The 2023 figures for hybrids were 49,182 which indicates a 51.5% increase. 

Petrol sales rose from 1,048,015 to 1,130,396, an increase of 7.9%. Diesels fell 1.2% from 706,282 to 697,718

JKenH

michaels said:

WE seem to be letting the carp statistics on number of fires (as we know generally misreported for 'attracting clicks' reasons) interfere with the substantive issue that is 'severity of fires'.  EVs could be (ad possibly are) 100 times less likely to spontaneously combust than cars but if 100% of car fires can be extinguished before they spread but 1% of EV fires will result in a conflagration that takes down the whole car park (and threatens the adjoining hospital) then it becomes a problem.

Personally I do worry about EVs on the channel tunnel and ferries because they are harder to extinguish and we simply don't have the experience of dealing with these fires.

Article from Autocar on just this subject

How much of a fire risk are electric vehicles?

We look at why EV fires are so hard to extinguish, how fire services are handling it and how to minimise risks

A battery flame is like a blowtorch that will quickly ignite anything in its path, which is why Christensen wants councils and other organisations to consider EV safety risks in underground car parks, as well as bus depots where vehicles are parked side by side.

“In Germany, three bus depots have gone up in flames in the past six or so months,” he says. “Tunnels, ferries, car parks, cargo ships transporting EVs – all the places you find electric vehicles should be considered a safety risk and the appropriate steps taken.”

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/electric-cars/how-much-fire-risk-are-electric-vehicles

thevilla

Or we could ignore the fud.

https://www.evfiresafe.com/

Martyn1981

More good news from Ethiopia. This is important as like other countries, there is a low vehicle ownership rate. In this case roughly 1 per 100 people. So if Ethiopia (and others) can leapfrog the ICE age (as many countries leapfrogged land lines), then this will help. I think HEV's and PHEV's have helped with the transition to BEV's, but it would be a disaster if substantial numbers are sold into such countries, going forward as vehicular numbers grow.

The common sense argument to minimise the $5bn in spending on fuel imports is also important for a poor country.

And to see how they hit their 10yr targets for EV's in 2yrs, excellent.

Ethiopia Shows Us Just How Fast The Transition To Electric Mobility Can Happen In Africa

Like a lot of countries on the African continent, Ethiopia has an exceptionally low motorisation rate. Ethiopia has a population of 126 million people, but the total number of vehicles registered in Ethiopia is around 1.2 million. Most of these vehicles are over 20 years old. According to reports and announcements from the Ethiopian government, Ethiopia had a plan to catalyse adoption of electric vehicles in Ethiopia with a 10 year target to see 148,000 electric cars and close to 50,000 electric buses on Ethiopia’s roads by 2030. However, Ethiopia has made incredible progress on this path to the extent that the Ministry of Transport and Logistics recently said that this target of over 100,000 electric vehicle has already been met in just the first 2 years of this plan! How cool is that?

Another factor that will accelerate the population of EVs is the move by the Ethiopian government to push for restrictions on all ICE vehicle imports. Late last year, the Ethiopian govern announced that it was finalising the process to ban all ICE imports in the extremely near future. A total ban on ICE imports! Not a plan to phase out new ICE vehicle registration by 2035 or 2040, no, but an impending immediate ban! Drastic but understandable. Ethiopia spends over $5 billion USD annually on petrol and diesel imports, precious foreign currency it does not have.

JKenH

Bit of a coup for Toyota which is on a roll this year with BZ4X sales.

National Highways orders fleet of Toyota bZ4X electric SUVs

National Highways is electrifying its fleet with by ordering 51 Toyota bZ4X fully electric cars for its team of inspectors.    

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/national-highways-orders-fleet-of-toyota-bz4x-electric-suvs

Martyn1981

Pretty depressing news regarding legacy auto, but no great surprise, I suppose.

Nearly all major car companies are sabotaging EV transition, and Japan is worst, study finds

A damning new report has shown that nearly all major car companies are actively sabotaging the world’s efforts to avoid catastrophic global warming. The lobbying strategies being used by the world’s largest automakers are putting global climate targets at risk and threatening the electric vehicle transition, according to the new report released by InfluenceMap.

Titled Automakers and Climate Policy Advocacy, the report provides analysis on the anti-EV lobbying activities of 15 of the world’s largest automakers in seven key regions around the world. The study uses industry-standard data from S&P Global Mobility on automakers’ forecast electric vehicle production.

In addition to scoring automakers on their climate policy sabotage, InfluenceMap also found the industry’s own EV production forecasts fail to meet the IEA’s (International Energy Agency) updated 1.5°C scenario of 66% EV market share by 2030.

The report says Japanese automakers are the least prepared for the EV transition and have the most active, strategic engagement against it.

This latest global report follows another damning report in 2023 by InfluenceMap which through FOI requests revealed the behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts of the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) to water down and delay pro-EV policies in Australia.

Negative lobbying “a key barrier to climate policy”

Aside from Tesla, only Mercedes and BMW have EV production forecasts that align with the IEA’s updated 1.5°C scenario which requires 66% of all new car sales to be EVs by 2030.

“Toyota, with a Performance Band score of D, remains the lowest-scoring company and is found to be driving opposition to climate rules in multiple regions.” says the report.

Netexporter

Bit of a coup for Toyota which is on a roll this year with BZ4X sales.

A win for BYD, who actually build them.

silverwhistle

JKenH said:

Bit of a coup for Toyota which is on a roll this year with BZ4X sales.

How many other BEV models do they have?

Netexporter

I gather BYD will also be building the new Toyota models, which will also have rubbish names. The BZ4X doesn't even sell in China. It's almost as if the Japanese brands don't want to sell EVs. If Japan was an oil producing nation it might be understandable.