New car registrations slowed by 5% in July compared to the same month last year, with petrol and hybrid cars taking the brunt of the fall.
According to data published this morning by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), overall new car registrations declined by 5% compared to last July, with private sales down 3% and fleet registrations down 6%. Looking at regional numbers, we also see a two-speed economy with England down 3% while Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were all down by 14%-16%.
Year-to-date after seven months, the market is still running slightly ahead of last year, up 2%. Again, Private sales are contributing more to that growth, up 4%, compared to fleet registrations which are up by less than 2%.
Basic hybrids slump as plug-ins surge
The renaissance of plug-in hybrids continues, with registrations up 33% on the same month last year. EVs were also up 9%, so it was another good month for both categories in a market that was down 5% overall.
Plug-in hybrid registrations were not far off the numbers for basic (no-plug) hybrids in July, suggesting that more buyers are looking at plug-in hybrids as a suitable halfway house between pure petrol cars and pure electric cars. This may also be hurting EV sales, but it still helps car manufacturers to hit their net ZEV mandate (the mandated government EV registration targets) numbers.
EV sales were still strong despite a slow month for Tesla. As we regularly advise, Tesla’s results fluctuate massively on a month-by-month basis, so there’s nothing unusual here. We tend to look at Tesla results on a quarterly basis, and we assume that Tesla sales will be back to usual strength in September.
What also made the EV registration data more impressive was that it was despite the government’s botched launch of its new electric car grant, which caused EV sales to stop dead for several days while car companies scrambled to launch their own discounts after it emerged that the government scheme was weeks from being ready to roll out. This will hopefully have only resulted in customers delaying their purchases by a month rather than choosing not to buy an EV at all.
Good month, bad month
Although the overall new car market was down 5% in July, there was considerable variation in performance among the various car manufacturers.
It was a good month for Alfa Romeo, Alpine, Bentley, BYD, Cupra, Ford, Genesis, Ineos, Jeep, KGM, Lexus, Mazda, Mini, Peugeot, Porsche and Skoda. All of these brands outperformed the overall market by at least 10%, meaning that their sales were up by at least 5% over last July.
Meanwhile, things were not so cheerful for Abarth, BMW, Citroën, DS Automobiles, Fiat, GWM, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, SEAT, Subaru, Suzuki, Tesla, Toyota and Volvo. All of these brands underachieved against the market, meaning their sales were down at least 15% on the same month last year.
That means that the following brands were about where we’d expect to see them: Audi, Dacia, Hyundai, Kia, Land Rover, Maserati, MG, Polestar, Renault, Smart, Vauxhall and Volkswagen. All of these had registrations that were within 10% (plus or minus) of the overall market.
BYD recorded the largest absolute increase of any car manufacturer, registering about 2,400 more cars than last July. Going the other way, Volvo dropped about 2,200 units on last July. As usual, Volkswagen was the largest brand, comfortably ahead of a resurgent Ford in second place, followed by Kia, Audi and BMW.
Sportage pips Puma to top spot
The Kia Sportage and Ford Puma continued their year-long sales battle in July, with the Kia edging the Ford on this occasion. However, the Puma is still about 3,000 units ahead in year-to-date registrations.
It was a better month for British-built cars, with the Nissan Juke in third place ahead of the Mini Cooper in fourth, with the Nissan Qashqai a little further back in sixth place.
We’ll have our usual look at the top ten in more detail in coming days.