For three weeks now, John has been the secret star in the neighborhood. In front of his house in south-west London there is something that the others would love to have: an electric car. When he bought the car two years ago, he was sometimes laughed at when he plugged in the power cord to charge it in the evening. But since people in Great Britain suddenly had to queue at the gas stations to get a drop of gasoline, it’s John who can’t quite help smiling. Malicious joy? A little bit. He says: “The electric car was the best investment in a long time.”
Like John, who doesn’t want to read his last name in the newspaper, many now want to be in the UK: regardless of the internal combustion engine. “Inquiries for electric cars have risen three to five times at dealers,” says Mike Hawes, head of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). He represents the interests of the UK auto industry and believes the queues at gas stations have shown the dependence on fossil fuels.
In any case, the figures for the buying and selling platforms on the Internet are clear. Alone on the first weekend of the fuel crisisAs the fuel crisis is called in Great Britain, the interest in e-cars has never been greater. At Autotrader and Carwow, the search queries increased by a good 60 percent compared to the previous week. “The level of demand for electric cars was completely unprecedented and real proof that a lot of people want to switch,” said Sepi Arani of Carwow, the online trade magazine Automotive management.
A neighbor writes in the Whatsapp group: “I went to four gas stations today, but they were all closed !!”
In the meantime, the situation at the petrol stations has eased, but there are still some who have no petrol. It helped that the British government required soldiers to drive tankers. The problem, however, remains: there are too few truck drivers in the Kingdom who can bring the fuel from A to B.
Well, at least in John’s Whatsapp neighborhood group, the panic has subsided. There are no more chats like at the beginning of the fuel crisis when, for example, a neighbor wrote: “Does anyone know a petrol station that has petrol? I went to four petrol stations today, but they were all closed !!” John can only smile about that. “I stayed out of it.” He believes that more and more people are now switching to electric cars. After all, the price of fuel would continue to rise, and then the 2030 deadline would come anyway. From this year onwards, no new cars with internal combustion engines will be allowed to be sold in the United Kingdom. That’s what the government decided.
In order to increase the demand for electric vehicles, there is currently a subsidy of up to 2500 pounds from the state. But loud Daily Telegraph the Ministry of Finance wants to cancel this subsidy in order to reduce government spending, which has risen in the pandemic. According to reports, the Ministry of Finance is convinced that the desire for e-cars will continue – even without queues at the gas stations.