Scarborough's drivers are slow to take up electric cars, figures show

Electric car technology is advancing all the time - and yet the latest figures suggest that Scarborough is not on board the green vehicle revolution.
An electric car being charged up.An electric car being charged up.
An electric car being charged up.

Despite manufacturers lowering prices and increasing the range of their cars, from October 2017 to September 2018, there were only 31 new electric vehicles registered in the area.

That’s far below the 4,318 in Birmingham, which had the highest increase of plug-in vehicles of any local authority in the United Kingdom.

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The latest Department for Transport statistics show the number of registered electric or plug-in hybrid cars, vans and micro cars called quadricycles in Scarborough over the four quarters of the year.

From July to September 2017, there were 69 electric vehicles.

By September 2018, there were 100.

This is much lower than the vast majority of the country, and goes against the increased accessibility and practicality of electric cars in recent years.

The latest Nissan Leaf, the UK’s most popular entirely electric car, can now travel 235 miles before it needs to be recharged, 80 miles more than the previous version.

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Over the next year BP will install charging points at its petrol stations, following Shell’s roll out in 2017. Dyson has also said it plans to release an electric car by 2020.

One advantage electric car users have over other vehicles is that they do not have to pay road tax, as they do not release any emissions.

Electricity is also far cheaper than petrol and diesel, and green drivers have the satisfaction of helping save the planet.

However, in November, the Government reduced the maximum discount electric car buyers could get from £4,500 to £3,500.

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Unsurprisingly plug-in vehicles still make up a tiny percentage of the cars on the road in Scarborough.

Compared with the 100 electric cars on our roads, there are 56,250 cars and vans in total, according to the latest complete vehicle registration data from 2017.