Motorists in the north are being left behind in EV race

New research has found that motorists in the north are stuck in the slow lane when it comes to electric car demand.

Analysis of the new and used electric car market shows that EV demand is 70 per cent higher in the south of the country. According to HeyCar, in terms of electric vehicle demand, there's a clear divide between motorists north of Birmingham and those in the Midlands and the south.

In October 2020, electric car demand in the south was 30 per cent higher than in the north of the UK. On a month by month basis, in May 2021 electric vehicle leads in the south were 83 per cent higher than the north. This jumped to 109 per cent in June 2021 before dropping down to around 30 per cent in August 2021 and then climbing again to hit a peak of 108 per cent in October 2021.

Electric car demand has remained high at 70 per cent in the south’s favour over the last six months. And with fuel prices soaring to record levels since then with the fallout of Russia’s war on Ukraine and the south-east the most expensive part of the UK for motorists to fill up this trend is likely to accelerate.

One of the reasons for the divide is being attributed to clean air zones. Oxford has already launched a Zero Emission Zone (ZEV) pilot which covers a number of streets in the city centre, ahead of plans to introduce a larger ZEZ covering most of the city centre in 2023 (subject to a public consultation).

The spikes in the data coincide with the launch of the Birmingham Clean Air Zone in June 2021 and the expansion of the London Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) in October 2021.

Dan Powell, Senior Editor at heycar, said: "I think there is clear evidence to suggest that clean air zones are creating market conditions that are driving the take-up of electric cars in the south and leaving the rest of the country lagging behind. Sadly, this has had a number of serious knock-on effects on car buyers in the north, with fewer public EV chargers and dwindling resources for the plug-in grant. This means the north-south gap will be extremely difficult to close without significant investment from the government."