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Virtually 4 in 5 vehicles utilized by the UK authorities stay petrol, diesel or hybrid-powered, regardless of it having beforehand pledged to “lead by instance” and transition to a very electrical fleet by 2027.
Knowledge uncovered by Autocar sibling title What Car? by way of Freedom of Info requests reveals that simply 22% of the vehicles utilized by the federal government are EVs.
In the meantime, 35% are diesels, one other 35% are plug-in hybrids, 6% are petrols and the remaining 2% are common hybrids.
The speed of electrification differs between authorities departments. The Driver and Car Licensing Company (DVLA) mentioned that 88% of its vehicles have been EVs, whereas the Ministry of Justice mentioned they accounted for simply 16% of its automobile fleet.
Having lagged in switching to EVs itself, the federal government took punitive motion towards hybrid and PHEV drivers within the latest Spring Assertion.
Car excise responsibility charges for such vehicles have been elevated from £10-£30 to £110-£130, relying on their CO2 emissions – a rise of as much as 11 occasions.
“It’s fully unsuitable that the federal government isn’t cleansing up its personal fleet on the similar time that it’s penalising peculiar drivers for not going electrical by slapping greater taxes on low-emission different autos,” mentioned What Automobile? editor Steve Huntingford.
Notably, the federal government that initially laid the plan to go fully electrical – together with its vans – by 2027 was a Conservative administration led by Boris Johnson.
The choice to “cleared the path” and reveal that EVs have been a viable choice for fleets was set when Grant Shapps was the transport secretary – three governments, 4 transport secretaries and 4 years in the past.
“We’ll lead by instance with 25% of the federal government automobile fleet extremely low emission by December 2022 and 100% of the federal government automobile and van fleet zero emission by 2027,” learn the Division for Transport paper setting out the coverage.
It is unclear whether or not the present Labour authorities (and present transport secretary Heidi Alexander) intend to interrupt from the Conservatives’ technique.
Nevertheless, it has already reversed its predecessors’ insurance policies in key areas, reminiscent of delaying the ban on gross sales of latest hybrid vehicles by 5 years to 2035.