TOP REVEALED: The UK’s Electric & Hybrid Vehicle Numbers, Ranked Best to Worst by UK Towns
With the ever increasing rise in fuel costs, and the fast approaching deadline for the non-production of petrol and diesel vehicles, recent data has confirmed that motorists across the UK are going greener.
The cost of living crisis combined with overall household bills rocketing have encouraged more and more people to look at ways they can save money, which is positively impacting the number of electric and hybrid vehicles on the road.
Here at FleetCover wanted to explore which towns are making a conscious effort to improve emissions. Previous years’ studies, not surprisingly, have shown the City of London to be the greenest town based on electric and hybrid vehicles compared to the overall total vehicles in the city.
We have once again requested the latest data from the DVLA to look at which local authorities have the highest percentage of these vehicles and which are way behind. (This was for the period between 1st January 22 to 31 December 22 – the most up-to-date data available).
Recent data has discovered that Windsor and Maidenhead have knocked the City of London from position one, with 28.74% of 174,734 vehicles being electric or hybrid.
Top 5 UK Towns Comparison
Stockport in Greater Manchester has been creeping up the table year after year. It has remained in position 2 for two years, showing an increase in the town’s electric and hybrid vehicles. December 2022 data shows 26.02% out of the 418,109 vehicles are electric or hybrid.
This study looks at the percentage of green transport overall, rather than specific numbers of vehicles – some local authorities may have more electric/hybrids than others. Still, they make up a smaller percentage of the vehicles, so they rank below other areas.
In fact, four areas from Greater London (City of London, Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham) made the top 10.
Top 10 Greenest Transport Areas in the UK
- Windsor and Maidenhead UA (28.74%)
- Stockport, Greater Manchester (26.02%)
- City of London (25.62%)
- Westminster, London (24.91%)
- Swindon, Wiltshire (20.40%)
- South Gloucestershire (19.77%)
- Portsmouth, Hampshire (19.26%)
- Peterborough, Cambridgeshire(19.12%)
- Slough, Berkshire (18.94%)
- Hammersmith and Fulham, London (18.27%)
Bottom 10 Greenest Transport Areas in the UK (#1 being least friendly overall)
At the very bottom of the data of all the 377 local authorities across the whole of the UK comes Mid Ulster in Northern Ireland, with just 1.74% (1,923 out of 110,416) of all vehicles registered falling under the electric/hybrid category.
It appears Northern Ireland has much catching up to do, with five of the worst local authorities hailing from the region.
- Mid Ulster, Northern Ireland (1.74%)
- Blaenau Gwent, South East Wales (1.90%)
- Fermanagh and Omagh, Northern Ireland (2.09%)
- Merthyr Tydfil, Wales (2.12%)
- Eilean Siar, Scotland (2.16%)
- Causeway Coast and Glens Northern Ireland (2.17%)
- Ceredigion, Wales (2.37%)
- Derry City and Strabane, Northern Ireland (2.46%)
- Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon, Northern Ireland (2.58%)
- Newry, Mourne and Down Northern Ireland (2.60%)
Philip Wall, Director of FleetCover, said: “We still have a long way to go to help make our towns greener, but with the recent rise of electric vehicle uptake across every local authority in the UK, I’m hopeful for a much greener future!
“I’m confident that more and more people will be looking into electric vehicles with the cost of living crisis impacting so many lives. Whilst these vehicles are more expensive to buy, the run cost is significantly cheaper than petrol and diesel. It’s apparent that more people are seriously considering a greener lifestyle”.
