“The Government continues to fail to match its own rhetoric in encouraging people to switch to electric vehicles,” said Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy Committee chair Rachel Reeves. “It needs to give a clear and unambiguous target to help industry and the consumer make the switch.”

Her comments came as the committee published the Government's response to its report from October titled ‘Electric vehicles: driving the transition’. The report called on Government to bring forward its target for all new sales of cars and vans to be truly zero emission, from 2040 to 2032.

The committee had also asked the Government to come up with detailed policies and actions to help make electric vehicles an attractive option for consumers, such as by providing them with access to convenient and reliable charging points.

Further recommendations from the committee's report in October included that the Government should subsidise the provision of charge points in rural and remote areas “without delay” and by 2022. In its response, the Government said the majority of electric vehicle drivers choose to charge their cars at home or at their workplace.

It added: “The Government will continue to monitor the market to ensure it is delivering a truly accessible charge point network. There are encouraging signs that this market led approach is working. As of November 2018, there are more than 15,000 publically accessible charge points or which more than 1500 are rapid, with many more in the pipeline.”

Also this week, a report by the think tank Localis says that millions of people could miss out on the environmental and financial benefits of electric vehicles; with the roll out of charging infrastructure exacerbating social divides.

It recommends that Government produces a standardised framework for how charging infrastructure is built and upgraded. The report – ‘Smart Cities: Fair investment for sustainable growth’ – argues that “outdated energy and infrastructure policies” must be modernised if the Government is to meet its target that all new cars sold are zero emission by 2040.

“Without a change in regulation, behaviour and a wholesale transfer of powers for local energy policies, we risk a tale of two cities in our major urban centres – deepening levels of inequality between the prosperous and more deprived parts of town,” said the group's chief executive Jonathan Werran.

(Photograph: Ian Stewart – Shutterstock)