UK car sales fall amid chip shortages but electric cars surge

theguardian.com:

The number of new cars sold in the UK slumped by 14% in March because of the ongoing semiconductor shortages and the cost of living crisis, as electric vehicles enjoyed a record month.

The slump in new car registrations, which follows two months of year-on-year sales increases, comes as the cost of petrol and diesel continues to soar to record levels.

However, there were 39, 315 new electric vehicle (EV) registrations in March, more in a single month than the total sold in the UK in 2019. as buyers are increasingly choosing more environmentally friendly forms of transport with cheaper running costs.

“At the current rate, sales of new electric vehicles (EVs) will overtake both traditional petrol and diesel sales by 2025,” said Ian Plummer, the director at AutoTrader. “There was already massive growth in this segment and, if anything, the demand for EVs is now even stronger as prices at the pumps rise on the back of the Ukraine crisis.”

However, increased sales of electric vehicles will also mean more demand for electric charging points.

In February, the Resolution Foundation warned that 10m homes do not have access to off-street parking or a personal garage, so will miss out on lower costs from charging the cars using cheaper overnight electricity.

“Ministers need to make sure we can accommodate that predicted growth,” Plummer said.

The slump in overall UK car sales in March, usually the strongest month of the year, follows a 41% fall in production in February, to the lowest levels since the 1950s.

The 14% fall in new car sales last month will take registrations below 250,000, compared to the March average of 450,000 in the decade before the pandemic.

“The industry’s lingering supply chain issues mean the traditional March rush