How many electric cars are there in Luton?

I recently read a report that Luton Council has secured funding to provide 165 more electric car charging points around the town by 2025. In response to this, one online commenter wondered if this was money well spent, asking how many electric cars (EVs) there were in Luton anyway?

In some ways the question misses the point, because charging points are being installed in anticipation of a major shift towards greener motoring. In time petrol and diesel cars will be phased out entirely, and Luton needs to keep ahead of this change, same as everywhere else. But it also made me curious – how many EVs are there in the town? And how is that number growing over time?

This information is available from the Department of Transport, as the DVLA keeps vehicle licencing statistics. Looking at the latest dataset for 2022, we can see that there were a…