The UK is on the cusp of an electric vehicle revolution. Last year, the government set an ambitious target to end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030, and National Grid has estimated that 35 million electric vehicles, or EVs, will be on the road by 2050. Billions of pounds are now being invested in charging infrastructure across the country and although there’s much more to be done to ease the transition to our EV future, Britain now has more EV charging points than it does traditional petrol stations.
The transition to electric vehicles is key to both the fight against climate change and to achieving our net zero targets as government figures show that around a quarter of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions currently come from road transport. As well as helping us reach carbon neutrality by reducing our emissions, the switch to EVs will also be crucial to improving air quality by reducing the level of toxic particles emitted from exhausts. Over the course of their lifetime, EVs will emit 60 per cent less greenhouse gas than a conventional diesel car – a figure that will only improve as more and more of the grid’s energy comes from renewable sources such as wind, wave and solar power.
