Greater than half one million pure battery-electric autos (BEVs) are on UK roads, new figures present.
Analysis of newest DVLA information by the RAC Basis reveals there have been 519,266 BEVs licensed on the finish of June.
That is up from 282,977 a yr earlier and 130,246 on the finish of June 2020.
RAC Basis director Steve Gooding instructed the PA information company: “It is a very important milestone when it comes to getting extra battery-powered automobiles onto our roads, however we nonetheless have a protracted option to journey earlier than we obtain a really inexperienced fleet provided that there are round 33 million automobiles in Britain.”
The Tesla Mannequin 3 is the preferred BEV with 75,188 on the street.
Gross sales of latest petrol and diesel automobiles and vans within the UK will likely be banned from 2030.
However newest figures from the Society of Motor Producers and Merchants present the fast improve in gross sales of latest pure electrical automobiles has slowed in latest months.
The variety of registrations in the course of the first three months of the yr was 102% greater than throughout the identical interval in 2021.
On the finish of August, the year-to-date improve had fallen to 49%.
This has been blamed on provide shortages, and Authorities grants value as much as £1,500 for purchases of latest plug-in automobiles being scrapped in June.
The Division for Transport stated it wished to “refocus” funding to encourage customers of different autos to make the change to electrical.
Mr Gooding went on: “In latest months the overall take-up of autos working solely on electrical energy can greatest be described as regular quite than stellar, with shortages of provide hampering the flexibility of a lot of the auto trade to get autos from their order books and into drivers’ palms.”
The fee-of-living disaster can also be main many individuals to “cling on to their present automotive for a bit longer”, he added.
“Understanding what number of electrical autos can be found to be used is essential, however what issues most is whether or not these autos are literally catering for the journeys that will in any other case be fossil-fuelled.”