How the UK is charging ahead in the electric vehicle revolution

For generations, gasoline and diesel have fueled the global economy, enabling people and the items we all depend on to quickly and reliably move from place to place. But cars, trucks, and other fossil fuel-powered fixtures on the planet’s roadways have also contributed to climate change, accounting for more than 15% of global energy-related emissions. As governments work to slash emissions and stave off the worst-case climate scenarios, many have also been ramping up ambitious plans to phase out fossil fuel-powered vehicles and transition to zero-emission alternatives.

One of the countries leading this charge is the UK, the first major economy to commit to a net-zero emissions law that is now investing more than £2 billion through the announcement of Auto 2030 in its race to lead G7 nations in decarbonizing transportation — a historic undertaking that is already well underway.

As part of its larger plan to reach net zero emissions by 2050, the UK is requiring all new cars and vans to be zero emission by 2035. As the name suggests, zero-emission vehicles don’t produce any climate change-inducing exhaust emissions. Currently, just two types of cars on the market fit this description: battery-powered electric vehicles that plug in to recharge, and less common fuel-cell electric vehicles that drivers fill up at emerging — but still rare — hydrogen fuel stations. To ensure the supply of electric vehicles increases at a steady pace, the mandate requires UK manufacturers to hit production targets along the way or risk fines, beginning this year when 22% of cars and 10% of vans they make will have to be zero emission.

In support of these goals, the UK has invested billions of dollars over the last decade in a range of initiatives aimed at advancing the growing zero-emission vehicle sector and building the infrastructure needed to expand it.

Katy Pell, the head of automotive international trade and investment at the UK’s Department for Business and Trade, says that the country has been making “great strides” in its transition from fossil fuels to zero-emission vehicles, but acknowledges that the move toward cleaner transport is a complex undertaking requiring the remaking of the entire auto industry’s infrastructure.

“It’s a huge transition,” Pell says. “On the manufacturing and industry side, factories have to be essentially rebuilt and you have to transition a workforce used to assembling clutch pedals or internal combustion engines. Consumers need to know that charging infrastructure is rolling out and that the energy grid can support a boost in demand. And from the supply perspective, this is about figuring out and establishing new supply chains [for battery composition and manufacturing].”

Underlying all this work is innovation needed to extend the lifespan of batteries, speed up charging time, increase opportunities for hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, and ultimately refine and expand the range of zero-emission vehicle options on the market.

Under the hood of the UK’s clean vehicle transformation

To tackle these diverse goals, the UK has built what Pell calls an innovation ecosystem through initiatives focused on supporting the development and rollout of different pieces of the transition puzzle. The UK’s Automotive Transformation Fund is helping to support the industrialization and scale up of a UK zero-emission automotive supply chain by incentivizing private investment in new gigafactories where batteries are made, and in companies working on motors, fuel systems, and other components needed in the production of zero-emission vehicles. The Fund has enabled a £1 billion investment in Sunderland by Nissan and AESC to create an EV manufacturing hub, has supported Ford in its UK-based production of electric powertrains, the construction of a hydrogen fuel cell gigafactory by chemical and sustainable technology company Johnson Matthey, and investment in a domestic rare-earth separation facility.

The Advanced Propulsion Centre, meanwhile, has supported more than 260 low-carbon research and development projects since 2013, including Mercedes-AMG’s ongoing work on a new solid-state battery solution that the premium carmaker’s subsidiary will demonstrate this year. Other initiatives specifically support battery research and development, while others focus on self-driving vehicles and the broader future of transport.

The Faraday Battery Challenge, another UK-backed initiative supporting innovators at the forefront of battery development, has also played a key role in seeing ideas through to fruition. It has tapped its £541 million in government funding to support companies like Ilika, which used the Challenge’s scale-up facility to develop solid state battery technology able to operate at higher temperatures than more common lithium ion batteries, and I-CoBat, which used the program’s resources to demonstrate that its cooling technique for EV batteries could reduce charging time to under seven minutes for 200 miles in range.

“Generally, from the time you start researching something, it takes about 20 years to get to a usable product. We really need to speed that up,” says Claire Spooner, deputy director for the Faraday Battery Challenge. “That’s one of the things the Challenge is doing — we’re speeding up that lifecycle to make sure that it doesn’t take 20 years to get from that amazing fundamental research to scale up and commercialize.”

Pell explains, “These systems have set up really strong relationships between the government, industry, and academia, which allows us to create this innovation ecosystem that is not really heard of elsewhere.”

The UK currently ranks fourth behind Switzerland, Sweden, and the US in the Global Innovation Index compiled by the UN’s World Intellectual Property Organization, thanks in part to its leading universities, like the University of Oxford — which is collaborating with Nissan to develop solid state batteries for commercial production — and government support for innovation.

“One of the areas where we really excel is taking a smaller idea or product and growing it up during the research and development process,” Pell says. “And you can see that with the Toyota Hilux,” a hydrogen fuel-cell powered pick-up truck developed with support from the Advanced Propulsion Centre and unveiled in the UK last September. “It is certainly the first of its kind in the UK, and although hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles are not as widely used and developed yet for passenger vehicles, it’s this kind of innovation and accessibility that we have in the UK that is really putting us ahead of the pack.”

The programs are complemented by the UK’s £400 million fund accelerating the roll-out of the 300,000 public electric vehicle charge points it estimates it will need by 2030, and ongoing work to decarbonize the power sector by 2035 and ensure the electricity network can support the boost in demand. They’re also bolstered by UK efforts to forge relationships with critical raw material suppliers in places like Australia and Canada, which both produce minerals essential for the production of batteries. Last year, for example, the UK joined forces with Canada to develop a circular critical minerals supply chain through skill sharing, research and development and funding opportunities for Canadian and UK businesses focused on improving the sourcing, processing and sustainable use of critical minerals used in electric vehicles. Beyond this, the UK has also introduced policies aimed at attracting innovators and manufacturers working on zero-emission solutions through tax incentives and streamlined visas for foreign founders.

UK speeds ahead in decarbonization race

Over the last year, these efforts have resulted in a number of important developments in the country’s race to zero-carbon vehicle emissions. Tata Group, which owns Jaguar Land Rover, announced in July its plans to build a £4 billion gigafactory in the UK to produce batteries for its electric Range Rovers, Defenders, Discoveries, and Jaguar brands. The factory will be one of largest in Europe and have enough capacity to get the country nearly halfway to its 2030 zero-emission production goals. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the group’s decision to build their first gigafactory outside of India in Britain a “huge vote of confidence” in the country.

BMW, meanwhile, confirmed in September that it would invest £600 million to expand its all-electric MINI production and keep it in the UK, and the UK announced that it had installed 50,000 public electric vehicle charge points, an important milestone. Two months later, Nissan announced the second and third EVs in their next generation UK production lineup – Juke and Qashqai – building on the Leaf EV announced in 2021. Demand from these models is expected to support three gigafactories in Sunderland. This brings the total expected investment by Nissan and their partners in Sunderland EV manufacturing since 2021 to £3 billion.

“We had a phenomenal year [in 2023] built on really strong work over the last decade to support the UK’s transition,” Pell says.

Indeed, sales of electric vehicles in the UK are steadily rising with battery electric vehicles representing 16.3% of market share in 2023, up from 15.1% the previous year — and less than half a percent in 2016, according to vehicle registration data from the UK’s Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. These figures place the UK among the top 10 countries in the world for electric vehicle supply and among the top five in electric vehicle transition “preparedness,” according to Ernst & Young.

Clean transportation advocates have welcomed the recent progress, especially the UK’s zero-emission vehicle mandate, which sets the country known for the fossil fuel-powered Industrial Revolution on a path to a cleaner future.

In response to the mandate, Richard Hebditch, the UK director for Transport and Environment, a leading advocacy group, wrote last March that the question was “no longer whether the internal combustion engine’s days [were] numbered,” but how fast we bid it farewell.