In The UK 3 Out Of 5 Drivers Are Expected To Switch To Electric Cars By 2027

The move to electric vehicles in the UK is far faster than in the US due to the higher cost of gas and the relative inconvenience of filling up a car in the UK compared to the US.

The EU, and particularly the Scandinavian countries, are aggressively moving to electric cars along with China. The UK, according to EY’s latest Mobility Consumer Index study, has 59%, up from 2023's 54%, of buyers looking to move to EVs over the next two years. However, the majority of these moves will be to hybrid cars and not pure electric vehicles. Preference for gas-powered vehicles has dropped from 41% to 36% over the last year.

So why is the interest in electric vehicles increasing in the UK?

Cost Of Gasoline

While the US heavily subsidizes gas companies, most other countries do not. Currently, the price of gas in the UK is around $1.81 to $2.32 a Liter or around $6.8 to $8.8 a gallon, which is expensive compared to the current $3.14 per gallon average gas price in the US. 

That is a significant cost to the average UK driver who drives around 617 miles a month and gets around 20 miles per gallon. That’s around 30 gallons a month on average for a cost of between $209 and $271 per month just for gas. And with the war in Ukraine blocking oil shipments out of Russia, I expect concerns that the costs would go even higher, supporting this move to electric cars.

The UK gets most of its oil and gas from Norway and the US, and it is virtually all imported, providing an additional incentive to move away from an imported fuel source like oil to a domestic fuel source like electricity. 

UK Gas Stations Suck

The UK is known for being cold and dreary, highlighting one of the significant differences between US and UK gas stations. We still have States where the gas is pumped for you in the US. I live in one, and this is a godsend in freezing weather. In addition, for some screwy reason, in the UK, they require you to hold the gas nozzle while filling up your car, while in the US, you can lock the valve open and go back and sit in your heated car while it fills up. With electric cars, in both countries, you can charge while sitting in your heated car, and with electric cars, you can have the heater working while charging while you typically are advised to turn your gas car off while filling up.

Yes, you can still fill the car up, even in the UK, faster than you can recharge your electricity, but sitting inside while doing so certainly makes this experience far more pleasant than not. So, owning a gas car has a far higher usability downside than owning an electric in the UK over the US.

Wrapping Up:

So, the much higher cost of gasoline in the UK, coupled with the filling-up process being far less convenient than in the US, leads to a far faster migration to electric cars in the UK. This suggests that if the government is serious about getting people to migrate to electric cars, it needs to make charging them more convenient and stop subsidizing gas companies so that the price of gas better reflects its actual cost.

Currently, the US is falling behind the world, and particularly countries like China, in terms of electric car adoption. If it wants this trend to change so the US becomes more competitive, it needs to change its related financial policies and incentives to more aggressively drive electric car growth.

Rob Enderle is a technology analyst at Torque News who covers automotive technology and battery development. You can learn more about Rob on Wikipedia and follow his articles on Forbes, X, and LinkedIn.