UK

Hyundai has announced a new all-in-one subscription service in the UK specifically dedicated to its BEVs, PHEVs, and hybrid vehicles. Named Hyundai Mocean, this new subscription service allows approved customers to have an EV delivered to them for a monthly fee that includes insurance, maintenance, road tax, and repairs. This is a business model Hyundai Motor Group has been experimenting with in other countries before trying it out in the UK.

Allegra Stratton, British prime minister Boris Johnson’s climate spokesperson, says she won’t switch to an electric car yet because she has range anxiety. So she drives a “third-hand” diesel Volkswagen Golf instead.

Highways England is considering imposing the UK’s first pollution-linked speed limits to help reduce smog in Sheffield. But why should electric vehicle drivers have to slow down too?

In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):

• Battery electric cars now account for 11% of the UK market – tied with diesel.
• The US consumed more electricity powered by renewables than by coal in 2020, reports the EIA.
• UnderstandSolar is a free service that links you to top-rated solar installers in your region for personalized solar estimates. Tesla now offers price matching, so it’s important to shop for the best quotes. Click here to learn more and get your quotes. — *ad.

The deadline to phase out coal from Britain’s energy system has been brought forward by a whole year, to October 2024.

In December 2019, plugin electric vehicles (PEVs) made up 6.6% of the UK market share. In December 2020, PEVs made up 23.4% of the market share. That’s a huge jump in just one year for PEV sales in the UK.

And the Tesla Model 3 was the UK’s best selling auto overall in the last month of 2020, at 5,798 vehicles.

The CDC Group, the British government’s development finance institution, will end most fossil-fuel financing abroad. It says it will invest only in companies that align with the Paris Agreement to achieve net zero by 2050.

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Jaguar Land Rover’s push to develop new electric cars has earned the carmaker a loan guarantee of £500 million ($622 million) from the UK government.

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New homes in the UK could all be fitted with electric car charging points in the future, as the UK government has outlined a number of EV-supportive proposals in a public consultation on England’s building regulations.

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A new report envisions a number of energy scenarios for the UK as it aims for net zero emissions by 2050, and one future path involves using 35 million electric cars to store a large amount of renewable energy.

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The UK is set to become the first G7 country to commit to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, with legislation to be introduced in Parliament today.

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A promising electric car-sharing program in a UK town only lasted a few months, as the EVs quickly became a target for vandals who caused “exceptional levels of damage” to the cars.

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The UK’s Committee on Climate Change has released its anticipated report, and it’s recommending a new goal — net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

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Less than two years ago, the UK announced its intentions to make its transportation fully electric by 2040, banning the sale of new diesel and petrol cars by that time. But government advisers will reportedly recommend moving that deadline up, possibly as much as a decade.

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The UK has made recent progress in reducing emissions, but a new government report reveals it’s set to miss future carbon budget goals by a widening margin.

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Climate change could cause the U.K. to face a water shortage in 20 to 25 years, according to an environmental official who referred to water demand surpassing supply as the “jaws of death.”

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The UK government announced several changes today to its Plug-In Car Grant program. They are essentially ending incentives for plug-in hybrid vehicles and they are reducing the incentive for all-electric vehicles.
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The UK has some good momentum for electric vehicle adoption and they are trying to keep it.

This week, the government unveiled their Autumn budget and it includes an important investment to support the adoption of electric vehicles. 
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You remember the Hyundai IONIQ? The South Korean automaker’s one-car platform to release three models with different electric powertrains, IONIQ Hybrid (HEV), IONIQ Plug-in (PHEV) and IONIQ Electric (BEV). It created a lot of buzz earlier this year with hopes that the all-electric version could compete with the Chevy Bolt, Tesla Model 3 and other long-range electric cars coming to market in the next year.

We were disappointed when it was actually revealed that the IONIQ Electric will actually have a 28 kWh battery pack allowing for an EPA-rated of about 110 miles. Now Hyundai reveals the first pricing for the vehicle in Europe, starting with the UK, further confirming that the vehicle will actually be competing with the Nissan LEAF.
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Earlier this year, Tesla launched a new in-house Personal Contract Purchase (PCP) program in the UK. The significantly more flexible program reduced the monthly entry cost of the Model S to £404 with a 30% down payment. At the time, Tesla said that after fuel and road tax savings, the monthly cost would be only £296 in the UK.

The new program seems to have contributed to Tesla’s recent success in the country, which became the automaker’s top market for the Model S in Europe in the first quarter 2016 after having delivered around 750 cars based on registration data. The country was normally trailing between the fourth and fifth positions in Europe for Tesla – behind Norway, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland.

With the recent reintroduction of the Model S 60, Tesla is now lowering the entry even further, across all markets of course, but in the case of the UK, the automaker is now claiming that you can get the monthly cost down to £0.
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Just a week after the first Tesla Powerwall for residential use in Australia has reportedly been installed in a Sydney suburb, it’s now the UK’s turn to get its first Tesla home battery pack. Homeowner Mark Kerr has become the first British Tesla Powerwall owner after a SolarPlant engineer installed the system at his home in Wales.
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