The new car market got off to a slow start in January, with registrations down 2% compared to the same month last year. However, this loss was only seen in petrol and diesel vehicles, as EV registrations shot up by 42%, hybrids improved by 3% and plug-in hybrids grew by 6%.
In terms of market share, EVs took more than 21% of sales. Petrol still rules the roost, but its share slipped to 50%, which is the lowest it has been for years. Still, this is only the first month of data for the new year.
This year, the ZEV mandate is set at 28%, although with various provisions and loopholes, it’s estimated that this will mean an industry average of about 23% EV sales to hit the target. Given that January and February have been the slowest months for EV sales every year for the last few years, this is likely to mean that the industry will comfortably hit its targets this year.
The growth in EV numbers is interesting because numbers were up by 42% despite Tesla sales being down 8%. This shows the broadening choice for EV customers now, with Tesla – for a long time, the UK market leader for EVs – having far less influence over the EV market than it used to.
As usual, market share for petrol and diesel continued to slow, although the slump in petrol vehicle sales in January was worse than expected – down nearly 13,000 units on the same month last year.
The main caveat in all this is that January and February are not particularly representative months, and many manufacturers will be working out how many petrol and diesel cars they can register now while still having enough cars to keep selling later in the year if they’re struggling to hit their ZEV mandate targets. We’ll have to wait to March to get a better idea of what’s really going on.
Numbers fall for both private and fleet sales
Both private and fleet registrations were down in January compared to last year, which was already the worst start to the year for private new car sales since 2009 – and this year was about 300 sales down on that.
Fleet registrations were also down by 4%, or about 3,500 units, making it a disappointing way to start the year.
Good month, bad month
Despite the overall market being down 2%, it certainly wasn’t all bad news. Some brands did very well, although others performed poorly.
It was a good month for Bentley, BYD, Cupra, Dacia, Fiat, Genesis, Jeep, KGM, Land Rover, Lexus, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Peugeot, Polestar, Suzuki, Volkswagen and Volvo. All of these brands outperformed the overall market by at least 10% (so saw a sales increase of at least 8% compared to last January).
Meanwhile, the year has got off to a slow start for Abarth, Alpine, Audi, BMW, Citroën, Ford, Honda, Ineos, Jaguar, Maserati, MG, Mini, Nissan, SEAT, Smart, Subaru, Tesla, Toyota and Vauxhall. All of these underachieved against the overall market by at least 10, so saw sales fall by at least 12%.
That means that the following brands were about where you’d expect them to be: Alfa Romeo, DS Automobiles, GWM, Hyundai, Kia, Porsche, Renault and Skoda.
As usual, Volkswagen was the number one brand for overall new car sales, ahead of Kia, BMW, Peugeot and Nissan. VW also had the largest growth of any brand, up more than 2,100 sales on last January. Going the other way, the biggest fall in January was Ford, down more than 3,000 units on last year.
In terms of EV sales, it was BMW that topped the charts according to New Automotive, a research group that tracks EV uptake. Second was Volkswagen, followed by Mercedes-Benz, Peugeot and Kia. Again, VW had the largest growth of all brands by volume.
Sportage starts the new year on top
The Kia Sportage looked on track to overhaul the Ford Puma to take the UK new car sales crown in 2024, only to mysteriously go AWOL in December. But it has started 2025 strongly, comfortably topping the sales charts for January. The Puma, meanwhile, was down in seventh place.
January often throws up some curious results, and it was unusual to see two Peugeots, two Nissans and two MGs all in the top ten. February is also usually an outlier, so we won’t get a real feel for how the year is progressing until the big new registration plate month in March.
