‘Watershed moment’: EV sales soar as oil price volatility drives away petrol car demand
Brits are racing to get their hands on electric vehicles after a surge in oil prices triggered by the war in Iran has driven away demand for petrol and diesel cars, one of the UK’s biggest used car supermarkets has said.
London-listed Motorpoint, which has seen its shares jump on the back of bumper profits, said it had seen a more than doubling of sales for EVs in recent months in a “watershed moment” for the future of the car industry.
Motorpoint chief executive Mark Carpenter told Morning Wire: “EVs are probably one of the stories of the moment especially given what has gone on in Iran. When that oil price shock started we saw a big lift in EV volumes.
“We’ve seen a lot of people switching from petrol and diesel – frankly we can’t keep up with demand on EVs so we’re having to buy very heavily to meet demand.
“[Oil price volatility] has broken the back of the EV reluctance in the UK market. Sometimes it takes something to push people over the tipping point and I think the oil price crisis that we see now is definitely one of those moments: a watershed moment for people moving into EVs.”
Chinese carmakers drive EV demand surge
A Morning Wire analysis found soaring demand for new Chinese vehicles had been a central driver in the UK’s embrace of EVs, with sales of BYDs overtaking Land Rovers and MG sales overtaking Mercedes. The Jaecoo 7 was the UK’s best-selling car in the month of March.
“We do do a lot of MGs… they’ve been around for many years and they are much more mature in their fleet offering,” Carpenter said.
Motorpoint on Wednesday posted a 8.1 per cent jump in turnover in the year to end March to £1.3bn, while pre-tax profit almost doubled to £7.5m during the year.
The Derby-based business upped its final dividend by 20 per cent to 1.2p, as it doubled down on its expansion plans. The firm intends to open nine new locations in the medium term with the first of these in Leeds due to open its doors later in the summer.
“We again significantly outperformed the wider used car market, demonstrating that our superior proposition, which is to make car buying easy, continues to resonate strongly with customers,” Carpenter said.
Carpenter added that the increased use of AI and data analytics to better understand the used car market had been key to boosting the firm’s profitability.
Motorpoint shares rose as much as 7 per cent to 135p in early trade on Wednesday. The stock price is now largely unchanged since the start of the year.