EV interest spikes 500% after ban on petrol, diesel car sales announced

United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the country would ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2030.

Public interest in electric vehicles (EV) soared within 24 hours of the announcement, according to The Driven. An increase of 500% was recorded by BuyaCar.co.uk.

Prior to the announcement, the car sale site said it received around 300 EV searches a day. This shot up to 1,679 a day.

“It seems that the government’s announcement has really sparked renewed interest in electric vehicles, surging on our site by a magnitude of (narly) 500% literally overnight,” said Christofer Lloyd, editor of BuyaCar.co.uk, in a statement.

An increase in EV sales will mean there is more availability for those who are in the market for second-hand EVs rather than new. “It will be interesting to see if that appetite for electric cars is maintained,” said Lloyd.

“Meanwhile, the government has clearly realised that encouraging mass adoption of cars with zero emissions at the tailpipe, calls for drastic measures and our own experience of the sustained demand for diesels confirms it,” he says.

The UK clean car resolutions will not ban the sale of used diesel cars though.

“The climate crisis is here now. No matter how quickly we reach zero emissions, the terrible impacts of the climate crisis will not just go away … As such, no matter how quickly it is done, solely cutting emissions is not enough,” environmental activists wrote in a letter, as reported by The Guardian.

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