Government u-turn on EVs cools consumer demand

A new survey by Auto Trader has revealed that 37% of respondents said they are unlikely to ever buy an electric vehicle.

This is up from 21% when the survey was last conducted in 2021.

Meanwhile, only 39% of respondents said they would buy an EV by 2035, down from 49% in 2021.

This comes after the government announced the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles would be delayed from 2030 to 2035.

Ian Plummer, Commercial Director of Auto Trader, said, “The government’s u-turn has clearly muddled the message on electric vehicles and this confusion has led to a doubling of the number of people saying they’ll never buy an electric car.

“Advert views for new and used electric cars remain stable on Auto Trader, showing that those in the market haven’t been deterred. Yet these survey results show that in the long term, mass electric adoption has been made a trickier task.

“The truth is, with the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate still in place, very little will actually change in the wake of the delayed ban and so the only real impact will be dented consumer confidence in electric cars, as demonstrated by our survey results.”