EVs to overtake petrol by 2020 03 | 08 | 2016
THE NUMBER OF electric car chargers will overtake the number of fuel stations in UK within four years. That’s the prediction according to new research carried out by Nissan.
The Japanese car giant, which manufactures the electric vehicle sector-leading Leaf, believes the number of EV charging stations will move ahead of petrol stations by August 2020.
At the end of 2015, there were 8472 fuel stations in the UK. Based on the current decline in fuel filling stations continuing over the coming years, Nissan predicts this will drop to 7870 by 2020. By that point, there's expected to be 7900 electric car charge points in the country.
Five years ago there were only a few hundred EV chargers across the country, but that has now grown to more than 4100 this year, coinciding with a surge in EV sales.
In the opening three months of the year, more than 115 electric cars were registered each day. According to the Go Ultra Low campaign group, electric could be the dominant fuel type by 2027.
The figures from Nissan reveal that 98% of motorway services in the UK have chargers, and there are only four fuel stations in London's congestion charge zone left. The data comes from the Energy Institute as well as Zap-Map, a tool that tracks electric car charging points in the UK.
In other news …. Nissan is continuing to push ahead with research into car sharing in cities. Set up in 2014, the Nissan Future Lab project uses a fleet of re-badged Renault Twizys in San Francisco that are ordered using a smartphone app to track consumer behaviour.
Related: Plug-in car grant extended to 2018
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Jim McGill