Analysis: EV drivers cover higher annual mileage than petrol owners
Last year, pure battery electric cars under three years old were driven an average of 10,054 miles, the study found. This is far more than petrol models (7,585 miles) and only marginally short of the average for diesel cars, which last year was 10,728 miles. The last year petrol cars were recorded to have higher average annual mileage than EVs was back in 2015 when battery vehicles were very much in their infancy.
The RAC says EVs are now so developed and capable that they are becoming a serious option for long-distance business drivers and 'starting to take over where the diesel left off'. The calculations are based on an analysis of more than 1.2 million MOT tests, with record held by the DVLA. Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said: '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 high-mileage capability of EVs has been improved by a rapidly growing charging network, especially the increase in availability of ultra-rapid charging hubs on the motorway network. Devices located at dedicated charging sites at motorway services can boost the batteries in the latest EVs from 10 to 80 per cent charge in under half an hour.
'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,' Gooding said. Earlier this week, the Government announced that drivers buying a new electric car will be eligible for grants of up to £3,750 . Only EVs with a retail price below £37,000 - and that are sustainably produced - are eligible for subsidies, with funding for the Electric Car Grant in place until 2028-29.
However, the qualify for the scheme, manufacturers must first prove that their EVs are sustainably produced - both the cars themselves and their batteries. This will determine the size of the discount provided from taxpayer funding, which ranges from just £1,500 up to the full quota of £3,750 for the greenest-made electric models.
However, manufacturers who fail to meet the sustainability criteria will be refused grants towards the sale price of their cars entirely. While car makers have widely welcomed the announcement and the potential increase in public demand for new EVs the scheme will trigger, industry insiders have dubbed it a drain on public finances.
Commenting in an exclusive report by This is Money , experts warned the grant will compound existing 'rampant depreciation' for EVs, which has crashed the second-hand market in recent years.
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Why you can trust Sky News Social media limits for children are being planned by the government to tackle "compulsive" screen time, the technology secretary has told Sky News. Peter Kyle said he was concerned about "the overall amount of time kids spend on these apps" as well as the content they see. A two-hour cap per platform is being seriously considered after meetings with current and former employees of tech companies. A night-time or school-time curfew has also been discussed. Children would be blocked from accessing apps such as TikTok or Snapchat once they have hit the limit, rather than just reminded of how long they have been scrolling, it is understood. An announcement on screen time is expected this autumn. Mr Kyle said: "I'll be making an announcement on these things in the near future. But I am looking very carefully about the overall time kids spend on these apps. "I think some parents feel a bit disempowered about how to actually make their kids healthier online. 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Mr Kyle spoke exclusively to Sky News after meeting with a group of pupils from Darlington who have spent a year participating in regular focus groups about smartphones and social media, organised by their Labour MP Lola McEvoy. They took part in a survey of 1,000 children from the town, mostly aged 14 and 15, which found that 40% of them spent at least six hours a day online. One in five spent as long as eight hours scrolling. Most of the under-16s (55%) had seen inappropriate sexual or violent content - often unprompted. And three-quarters of the under-16s had been contacted online by strangers. In the session in parliament, in which the children were asked what they were most concerned about, Jacob, 15, said: "A lack of restrictions on screen time I would personally say, which leads to people scrolling for hours on Tiktok. "People just glue their eyes to their phone and just spent hours on it, instead of seeing the real world." Tom, 17, said: "I get the feeling you have to be quite tech savvy to protect your kids online. You have to go into the settings and work out each one. It should be the default. It needs to be straight away, day one." Matthew, 15, said: "I think because everybody is online all the time and there's no real moderation to what people can say or what can be shared, it can really affect people's lives because it's always there. "As soon as I wake up, I check my phone and until I go to bed. The only time I take a break is when I eat or am talking to someone." Some of the teenagers had spent 12 or even up to 16 hours a day online. Nathan, 15, said: "When, for example, a 13-year-old is on their phone 'til midnight, you can't sleep, your body can't function properly and your mind is all over the place." But there was scepticism about what could be done. Charlotte, 17, said: "If your parents sets a restriction on Instagram and say, 'right, you're coming off it now' - there's TikTok, there is Pinterest, there is Facebook, there's Snapchat, there so many different other ones, you can go on, and it just builds up and builds and builds up, and you end up sat there for the entire evening just on social media. I think we need harsher controls." Several of the pupils who met Mr Kyle detailed being contacted by adult strangers, either on social media apps or online gaming, in ways which made them feel uncomfortable. How could the ban actually work? The tech already exists to make a ban like this a reality. On Friday, rules will start being enforced in the UK that will mean sites hosting harmful adult content will need to properly check the ages of their users. There are a number of ways companies could do that, including credit card checks, ID checks and AI facial age estimation. It is likely these are the same systems that would be used to keep teenagers off social media during certain hours, as suggested by Peter Kyle to Sky News. It's how Australia is looking into enforcing its total ban of under-16s on social media later this year - but the process isn't without controversy. Concerns around privacy are frequently raised as internet users worry about big tech companies storing even more of their personal data. There are also questions about just how effective these age verification processes could actually be. Tech like AI facial estimation can reliably age-check users - but teenagers may quickly work out how to circumvent the system using plugins and settings that could be a mystery to all but the savviest parents. At the moment, a lot of age-checking AI systems are trained to spot the difference between an adult and a child, and can do that to a high degree of accuracy. But while telling the visual difference between a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old is much harder, AI learns fast. Officials working on the UK's age verification scheme have suggested AI will soon be able to accurately verify the ages of under-18s, making a ban like this much more realistic. Mr Kyle said: "It is madness, it is total madness, and many of the apps or the companies have taken action to restrict contacts that adults - particularly strangers - have with children, but we need to go further and I accept that. "At the moment, I think the balance is tipped slightly in the wrong direction. Parents don't feel they have the skills, the tools or the ability to really have a grip on the childhood experience online, how much time, what they're seeing, they don't feel that kids are protected from unhealthy activity or content when they are online." The tech secretary is in the process of implementing the 2023 Online Safety Act, passed by the previous government. From this Friday, all platforms must introduce stronger protections for children online, including a legal requirement for all pornography sites accessed in the UK to have effective age verification in place - such as facial age estimation or ID checks. Mr Kyle added: "I don't just want the base level set where kids aren't being criminally exploited and damaged, that shouldn't be the height of our aspirations. The height of our aspirations should be a healthy experience." Labour MP Lola McEvoy, who organised the focus group, said: "I knew things were bad online for children and young people but their testimony revealed the extent of explicit, disturbing and toxic content that is now the norm. "Their articulation of the changes they wanted to see was excellent and they've done our town and their generation proud." Tiktok, Pinterest, Meta and Snapchat were contacted for comment, but none provided an on the record statement. The companies have accounts for under-16s with parental controls and some set reminders for screen time. TikTok has a 60-minute daily screen time limit for under-18s after which they must enter a password to continue, and a reminder to switch off at 10pm. The company say this is to support a healthy relationship with screen time. Pinterest have supported phone-free policies at schools, in the US and Canada and say they are looking to expand this elsewhere.
