Electric vehicle (EV) sales in the UK hit a record high in 2024 but still fell short of government-mandated targets.
According to preliminary data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders (SMMT), there were 382,000 all-electric vehicles registered in the UK last year.
This was an all-time high and represented nearly one in five (19.6%) of all new cars sold across 2024.
It also represented a 2.6% increase in sales over the previous year, but fell short of the 22% set out by the government in its zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate.
The ZEV mandate is the government’s official pathway towards zero emission vehicles and sees the proportion of new cars that must be fully electric rising steadily until 2035, when new diesel and petrol cars will be phased out altogether.
According to Car Magazine, many manufacturers had discounted their EV ranges at “unsustainable levels” in an effort to meet ZEV targets.
Only around one in 10 EVs were bought by private customers, with most of the increase attributable to business fleets.
The SMMT said that this had to change if sales were to meet the 25% target for 2025.
Natural demand for EVs lagging behind government targets
The SMMT added that market demand for EVs had “not matched the assumptions behind the mandate when it was conceived”.
Carmakers could potentially face heavy fines for missing targets, but the government has said that it expected all manufacturers to avoid the penalties for 2024.
They should be able to do this by taking advantage of built-in ‘flexibility mechanisms’ that take into account factors such as emission reductions across all vehicles sold.
In the global market, Tesla saw sales fall in 2024 for the first time in more than a decade.
Elon Musk’s flagship firm remains the biggest EV manufacturer in the world, but China’s BYD is closing the gap.
Tesla delivered nearly 1.79 million electric cars last year, which was down about 1% from 1.8 million in 2023.
BYD, meanwhile, sold 1.76 million pure EVs last year and a total of 4.3 million EVs and hybrids.
China has invested heavily in EVs with billions of pounds worth of subsidies and is expected to sell more hybrid and pure EVs than petrol or diesel cars for the first time in 2025.
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