We're near the tipping point for electric cars

Demand for electric cars is soaring soared. And while the switchover will be expensive, we could be near a tipping point.

January’s statistics on new car sales for the UK were pretty dire. New registrations fell by more than 7% on last year. There are lots of reasons for that – shifting rules on emissions, plus fewer people falling out of financing deals (and thus upgrading to new models), saw diesel sales fall by more than a third, while petrol car sales fell by near-10%. But there was one bright spot. Demand for partly or entirely electric vehicles soared. The number of new battery-powered electric vehicles hitting the roads trebled (from a low base), while sales of various hybrid types were up sharply too.

Over in the US, shares in Tesla – king of the electric-car makers (for now) – went on an extraordinary run. The share price has doubled since the turn of the year. I can’t pretend to understand it and it’s clear the stock is in some sort of mania phase. But I won’t complain – it’s a big holding in one of our favourite investment trusts, Scottish Mortgage.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up
Explore More
John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.