EVs due to make up nearly a third of used car sales by 2030, says research

Electric vehicles will make up close to a third of UK used car sales by 2030, new research suggests.

Data generated by insurance firm LV= discovered that 31 per cent of the cars on the used market will be electric vehicles by the time the Government’s ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars is introduced at the start of the next decade.

LV= compared the current sales of new electric cars with those for petrol and diesel vehicles via data from the Department for Transport (DfT) and the DVLA.

Using this data, it then forecast changes in registrations for both battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and petrol and diesel-powered cars over the next decade.

Gill Nowell, head of EV at LV= General Insurance said: “While the average annual running costs of electric cars are significantly cheaper than petrol or diesel cars, the sticker price remains one of the big barriers for drivers considering making the switch, which is why these projections for a thriving second-hand market by 2030 are so encouraging.”

In 2021, fully electric vehicles made up only 1.3 per cent of the total number of cars on the road, numbering 399,981. That figure is expected to exceed one million in 2023, though this would still only equate to 3.1 per cent of all the cars on the road. By 2025, this figure is expected to double to around six per cent prior to going up three-fold by 2030 with 6.4 million BEVs on the UK’s roads.

In 2021, electric vehicles are only expected to take up two per cent of the total second-hand car market with 129,032 sold. However, that figure is expected to grow steadily, though it won’t be until 2026 – according to LV= – when there will be one million on the road, equating to 15 per cent of the used car annual sales market. By 2030, this figure is expected to rise to over three million.