Erin Baker: EV momentum is building – what have we learnt so far?

UK EV sales hit record heights, but the target gap remains

Things do look positive if you’re focused on EV sales. There are now 1.6 million electric cars on UK roads, and 72,779 new EVs were registered in September – a record month. That means EVs account for more than one in five new cars bought in 2025 so far.

But while a 22.1% market share sounds healthy, it’s still shy of the Government-mandated 28% target for the end of the year. You might also wonder about the split between business and private customers. Of those September registrations, a huge 71.4% were bought by businesses or fleet operators.

That said, private demand is rising too, fuelled by discounts and the Government’s Electric Car Grant, announced in July, which sparked a strong surge in consumer interest over the summer.

More EV models and cheaper prices

There are now more than 150 pure-electric models on sale, spanning every segment and price point across 47 brands. The price gap between new electric and petrol cars has also narrowed sharply – from 59% in 2020 to 18% today, according to Autotrader.

Look at three-year-old EVs and you’ll see we’ve almost reached the long-promised holy grail of price parity with petrol equivalents.

Range anxiety and charging infrastructure

The average range of a new electric car now sits at 290 miles – just short of the psychologically important 300-mile mark that could meaningfully shift consumer confidence. The charging landscape has transformed too. The UK now has 85,000 public charge points, four times the number in 2020, according to Zapmap.

More interestingly, the once-rigid belief that mass adoption requires 300,000 public charge points by 2030 is beginning to soften. A far more nuanced picture of real-world EV usage is emerging.

Most EV owners with a driveway rarely use public chargers. Meanwhile, for those without off-street parking, destination charging is set to play a much bigger role. The BVRLA’s Bon Voy-Charge, launched in Parliament last month, highlighted exactly this. I spoke there about the need for MPs to encourage local businesses, local authorities and councils to get grid connections moving and charge-point operators involved.

Charging while at cinemas, hotels, restaurants, concerts and supermarkets is simply more attractive than relying on unknown public chargers mid-journey.

EV intent is growing and new entrants are reshaping the market

It’s not just current sales that are rising – future intent is too. A recent Cox Automotive survey found that 55% of respondents are considering an EV for their next car.

Chinese new entrants BYD and Jaecoo are making remarkable progress, each placing a model in this year’s top 10 best-selling list (the Seal U and Jaecoo 7 respectively, according to the SMMT). But European brands aren’t being left behind.

Ford is the only OEM so far to have received the full £3,750 electric car grant for its Puma-e. Kia claimed World Car of the Year with its excellent EV3. Renault is coming out swinging with the brilliant sub-£25,000 Renault 5 E-Tech. The Dacia Spring and Hyundai Inster prove small EVs can be genuinely fun. And at the other extreme, Rolls-Royce’s £500,000 Spectre shows how electric propulsion can deliver true luxury.

It’s a smorgasbord of innovation, personality and promise.

The remaining barriers

But barriers remain. As Professor Isobel Sheldon explained when I interviewed her recently for EV Battery Solutions’ Beyond the Battery series, solid-state batteries are still some way off.

Large sections of the national media remain determinedly anti-EV, publishing headlines claiming that “running an electric car is twice as expensive as a petrol one” based on a single return trip from Penzance to London.

And we still have 35% of the population without a driveway, meaning accessible and affordable public charging remains essential.

In the meantime, I’ll be saving my pennies for my next EV. When the cars look good, produce zero tailpipe emissions and carry a shrinking carbon footprint with every mile you drive, it’s hard not to be won over.