(UR) United Kingdom — Many said the day would never come, but even Big Car makers are showing signs of succumbing to the tidal wave of demand for alternative, clean fuels. Nissan has just announced that it will have more electric charging stations than gas stations by the year 2020. This is a massive tipping point to support clean energy, and the unshackling of the masses from a reliance on fossil fuels.

Nissan is making its first move toward electric vehicle charging stations in the U.K., but other countries could soon follow this business model. A report by a local electric vehicle (EV) company found that there were 8,472 traditional fuel stations in the U.K. at the end of last year, representing a steady decline from the 37,539 recorded in 1970. Based on those falling statistics, the number of petrol stations is likely to plummet to under 7,870 by summer 2020, according to Nissan as cited by the Guardian.

As public EV charging points begin to outnumber petrol stations by the end of the decade, the U.K. will take a step toward fulfilling the Paris agreement signed by numerous countries around the world. The agreement champions zero emissions for a cleaner, more environmentally sound planet.

Fossil fuel-based cars are a major contributor to toxic air and overall pollution. Collectively, cars and trucks account for nearly one-fifth of all U.S. emissions, emitting around 24 pounds of carbon dioxide and other toxic wastes for every gallon of gas. That white haze you see over many cities isn’t due to a collective toke, but the gathering of tropospheric ozone, or smog. Smog has been shown to be harmful even at levels lower than the federal air standard, and can also reduce crop yields.

National security experts have even suggested that we break up Big Oil. The Hill has argued:




This is because oil prices have been rigged for a very long time. At minimum, this is a $3 trillion-dollar market — in the U.S., alone. Moreover, despite these massive profits, the fossil fuel industry receives tens of billions of dollars in subsidies every year at the expense of U.S. taxpayers

Even one Big Car company allowing people a chance to uncouple from their sadistic dance with fossil fuel use means that no matter what oil prices do, we can still get from point A to point B without tearing up the planet.

Even better? When all electric cars are plugging into solar or another alternative fuel system, we can say goodbye to Big Oil hegemony for good.

This article (Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Will Outnumber Gas Stations by 2020 in the UK) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Christina Sarich and UndergroundReporter.org. If you spot a typo, please email the error and the name of the article to undergroundreporter2016@gmail.com. Image credit: Flickr/frankh