Britain targets carbon with electric vehicle investment

The United Kingdom government has announced plans for an "electric vehicle revolution" in Britain, including a combined 2.6 billion pounds ($3.4 billion) in public and private financing for a nationwide network of charging points.

The government aims to bring the total number of charging points in the UK for electric vehicles, or EV, to 300,000 by 2030, representing a 10-fold expansion.

This rollout will be supported by 1.6 billion pounds of funding under the UK Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Strategy, meanwhile EV charging station manufacturer BP Pulse has said it will invest 1 billion pounds over the period as a lead supplier.

"We're powering ahead with plans to help British people go electric, with our expanding charging network making journeys easier right across the country," said Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

A lack of charging infrastructure is seen as one of the biggest barriers to EV uptake, especially in more rural areas. The Department of Transport said it wants EV charging to be "easier and cheaper than refueling a petrol or diesel car", and says that the planned increase in charging points is equivalent to five times the number of fuel pumps on British roads today.

"No matter where you live-be that a city center or rural village, the north, south, east or west of the country-we're powering up the switch to electric," said Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.

The UK EV strategy is part of a wider push to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Transport produced 27 percent of the UK's total emissions in 2019, according to the most recent government data.

Of this, 91 percent came from road transport vehicles. The biggest contributors were cars and taxis, which made up 61 percent of the emissions from road transport, followed by heavy goods vehicles (18 percent) and vans (17 percent).

EV sales in the UK shot up after 2020, when the government announced that the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles would end by 2030. In December 2021, over a quarter of all new cars sold in the UK were battery-powered, compared to just under 2 percent in the same month two years earlier.

Roger Kemp, a professor of engineering at Lancaster University and a member of the National Engineering Policy Centre Net Zero Working Group, said that developing an electric vehicle charging network will play a key role in reducing transport carbon emissions.

"The transport sector currently accounts for a third of all carbon dioxide emissions, much of which is from road transport," he said. "It will also help to support a greater uptake of electric vehicles by the public and therefore reduce the number of petrol and diesel vehicles on the road. This will consequently improve the air quality and health impacts from air pollution associated with road vehicles."