The UK doesn't need to drive less to reach its climate change goals but...battery electric vehicles may need to jump from 2% to 35% of the total fleet by 2030, according to new modelling.
This challenge was described by one expert as 'like climbing Everest on a bad day'.
The RAC Foundation pointed out that the Climate Change Committee’s Sixth Carbon Budget (2033-2037) requires annual CO2 emissions from cars to fall around 40% between 2021 and 2030, from about 57 million tonnes to around 34 million tonnes.
The charity said its modelling indicates that this reduction might be achieved by many possible scenarios but that if the driving patterns of tens of millions of car owners do not change, three other factors will be crucial:
- the take up of plug-in battery-electric cars,
- the proportion of car-driven miles accounted for by these battery-electric vehicles, and,
- the rate of departure of petrol and diesel cars from the UK’s vehicle fleet.
Taking 2019 as the best pre-COVID representative base year, the Foundation ran its model thousands of times using 14 key parameters – including the three listed above – with a range of plausible values derived from existing projections, policy commitments and recent trends.
The analysis looks at changes that would be needed in scenarios where car mileage does not fall and reveals that, if the total number of car-driven miles stays steady or continues to grow, battery electric cars would potentially have to account for some 35% of the total car fleet in 2030 and at least 37% of all car miles driven.
The modelling recognises existing government policies, such as the ban on the sale of new pure petrol and diesel cars from 2030, and the forthcoming Zero Emission Vehicle mandate but does not allow for any transformational shift in either the affordability of motoring or in public behaviours that might result from fresh policies yet to be announced.
This would be around 13.5 million electric cars out of a projected 38.6 million. The latest government data shows there are currently 33.2 million cars licensed in the UK of which 548,000 (less than 2%) are pure battery electric.
According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, 1.6 million new cars were sold in the UK in 2022, of which 267,000 (17%) were pure battery electric.
Unfortunately, the average age of cars on the road is rising. In 1994 it was six years and two months but by the end of 2021 it was eight years and four months.
Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said: ‘From the point of view of the planet the next car people buy is critical.’
However, he acknowledged that for people thinking of going electric but wavering, perhaps because of the up-front price, ‘there is a case for pausing to see how things play out in the next year or two, rather than falling back to petrol’.
'Based on current trends getting the car fleet up to 35% pure battery-electric by 2030 without reducing driven miles looks like a monumentally steep challenge, like climbing Everest on a bad day.
'Bearing in mind that annual mileage per car was already falling way before COVID, maybe planning for a reduction in total car mileage wouldn’t be as contentious as some fear, particularly if accompanied by complementary policies, such as support for public transport.'
He added: 'Despite the challenge of austerity, if the chancellor was canny he could use VED to push car buyers more firmly towards electric options, encourage petrol-car purchasers to choose models offering the best-in-class fuel-efficiency and in doing so actually raise some cash he could then use to cut the costs of electric motoring.'
