Electric cars: 29.8% of August.
A record. Also a load.
SMMT figures published on 4 September show battery electric cars took 29.8% of new registrations in August, the biggest single fuel type for the month and a record. Every one of them is a 7kW load that will plug in at 6pm unless something tells it not to.
📊 The numbers
94,236 new cars registered in August. Battery electric up 27.7% on last year to 29.8% share. Plug in hybrids up 39.8%. Over 170 zero emission models on sale.
Year to date the electric share is 25.6% against a 33% mandate target. Still short, but the gap is closing fast.
🔌 What a car does to a house
A home charger draws 7kW. A typical house without one peaks at 2 to 3kW. Plug in at 6pm and the house roughly triples its demand at the most expensive hour of the day.
Do that across a street and the local substation notices. Do it across the country and the grid operator does.
💷 What a car can earn
The same car charged at 2am, or at 1pm on a sunny day, is a benefit rather than a problem. It soaks up cheap electricity nobody else wants.
Smart charging tariffs already pay for this. So does the grid, directly, when it asks connected chargers to pause for an hour at peak.
An EV charger is the single most valuable device a household can connect. Not because it uses a lot, but because it does not care when.
Nearly a third of new cars are now batteries on wheels. Charged at the wrong time they are the grid's biggest new headache. Charged at the right time they are its cheapest new power station. The difference is a setting.