Petrol and diesel cars tipped to be ‘unviable’ in | Tech News

Petrol and diesel cars will develop into “unviable” by the tip of the last decade, with street customers tipped to flip their back on combustion automobiles. Analysis by EV specialists PodPoint has warned that “falling residual values” for petrol and diesel fashions will make them successfully nugatory by 2030. 

They urged that drivers are seemingly to ditch petrol and diesel automobiles as it’s “hard to imagine” why motorists would trouble with combustion fashions when electric car prices drop. The evaluation comes forward of the UK’s upcoming ban on petrol and diesel cars, set to be launched in 2030. 

Under the new rule, most producers will be unable to sell brand-new combustion petrol and diesel cars, with solely sure exemptions in place. However, PodPoint urged that the majority drivers would have already embraced electric fashions by this stage, particularly when upfront prices develop into more reasonably priced. 

They defined: “Electric cars are already cheaper to run than ICE equivalents, and with battery prices continuing to fall, they’ll soon be cheaper to buy as well. In fact, we’re already starting to see some solidly affordable mass-market models with decent ranges arriving.

“Of course, there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done to build the charging infrastructure we need to support the mass uptake of electric cars over the next decade. But rest assured, that work is well underway, encouraged by the demand for EVs and our collective need to safeguard the environment and halt climate change.

“So it’s already easy to see why you might buy an EV in 2030, and hard to imagine why you’d bother with an ICE car, even a second-hand one. This means falling residual values will make them unviable, pushing the UK closer to 100% electric sales.”

Despite the optimism, model new petrol automobiles are nonetheless massively outselling EVs in the UK at this stage. Data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) revealed over 937,000 petrol automobiles had been bought in 2025, in contrast to simply 473,000 battery electric fashions. 

Just over 100,000 model new diesel fashions additionally left forecourts in 2025, guaranteeing the automobiles retain no less than a 5% market share. However, combustion gross sales had been on the decline, with petrol gross sales down by 8% and diesel curiosity declining by 15.6%.

He beforehand mentioned: “Rising EV uptake is an undoubted positive, but the pace is still too slow and the cost to industry too high.  Government has stepped in with the Electric Car Grant, but a new EV tax, additional charges for EV drivers in London and costly public charging send mixed signals.”