At least 1 in 20 car miles driven is now zero emission
More than one in 20 car miles travelled in the UK is now driven by a zero-emission car.
New analysis by the RAC Foundation found that zero-emissions cars – almost entirely EVs – are second only to diesel in terms of the miles they cover. It also showed that EVs cover a disproportionately high number of all car miles driven in the UK.
The study of MOT data for more than 1.2 million passenger cars shows that at the end of 2024, zero-emissions cars made up 3.4% of the entire national car fleet but accounted for 5.3% of all car miles travelled.
On average, zero-emissions cars covered 10,054 miles, only slightly behind diesel at 10,728. The RAC Foundation noted that the total number of zero-emission miles driven is likely to be even higher as the figures don’t include the miles covered by hybrids under electric-only power. The overall average mileage across all fuel types was 8,460 miles.
While zero-emission cars largely refers to battery electric models, a tiny proportion will also be the handful of hydrogen fuel cell models such as the Toyota Mirai.
The RAC Foundation’s director Steve Gooding said the new figures showed the rapidly shifting automotive landscape where drivers no longer feared long trips in electric cars. Diesel has traditionally been the go-to fuel for long distances but the new data shows drivers are increasingly relying on their EVs to cover large mileages.
The picture has changed significantly in the last decade. In 2014 EVs covered on average half (49%) the miles of a new diesel. Since then average EV mileage has risen every year except 2021, and today they are doing almost the same number of miles (94% the distance of a diesel).
Gooding noted: “Until recently new car buyers, often fleets and businesses, have looked to diesels when they’ve needed something capable of racking up the big miles whilst still offering reasonable fuel economy. Now it seems that fully electric cars are starting to take over where the diesel left off, providing a practical alternative in terms of range and cost per mile, and because of the attractive tax breaks they come with.
“The world where many saw the electric vehicle as being a second-car option, handy only for short trips, is changing rapidly to one where the battery-electric car is being bought to be a workhorse, adopted by fleet buyers and used by those whose jobs see them driving far further each year than the average motorist.
“That’s good news for helping us meet our carbon reduction targets in a week when the Government has also reinstated grants to make new electric models more affordable.”
The research contributes to the RAC Foundation’s Green Fleet Index. This tracks progress towards what the Foundation estimates is the minimum proportion (37%) of zero-emission car mileage needed by the end of 2030 to achieve carbon reduction targets without reducing miles driven.
