New figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) have today been released, detailing new car registrations in May. Despite overall sales of new cars dropping by over 20% compared to May 2021, new registrations of pure-electric cars, or BEVs, showed an increase of almost 18%.
In contrast, sales of internal combustion engine vehicles were down, with diesel and petrol car sales decreasing by 50% and 25% respectively on May last year. Also notable was the decrease in sales of new plug-in hybrid electric cars (PHEV) – which many see as a transition technology to pure-electric vehicles – with PHEVs dropping by 25% compared with May 2021.
The Zap-Map graph below shows the number of new battery-electric cars registered each month over the the past 13 months.
May 2022 saw a total of 22,787 new plug-in vehicle registrations, comprising 15,448 BEVs and 7,339 PHEVs. This takes the cumulative total of plug-in vehicles on UK roads – as of the end of May – to over 880,000. That total comprises almost 490,000 BEVs and over 390,000 PHEVs.
So far in 2022, over 92,000 BEVs have been sold in the UK, alongside more than 43,000 PHEVs.
Last month’s sales saw plug-in vehicles take 18.3% of market share, with BEVs accounting for 12.4% of overall vehicle sales in May.
This means that plug-in vehicles currently represent 21% of market share in 2022, with BEVs at 14.4% and PHEVs at 6.6%.
While no battery-electric car entered the top ten bestsellers last month, the latest EV charging statistics from Zap-Map show that over 805 new charging devices were installed in May. This brings the UK total to more than 32,300 devices, across 19,945 locations. It also represents a 32% increase in charging devices over the past year.
Moreover, last month saw 109 new rapid and ultra-rapid charging devices installed, bringing the total to 5,860. This includes an increase of 73% in the number of ultra-rapid devices – capable of adding from 70 miles in as little as 15 minutes – since May 2021.
Looking ahead, EV charging provider Mer, which is soon to go live on Zap-Pay, plans to install over 300 charge points at 39 Blue Diamond garden centres across the UK.
Furthermore, Osprey has been selected as a preferred partner to provide the charging for non-aeronautical vehicles at Urban-Air Port’s ‘vertiport’ sites as they enter operation.
