Are EVs about to go mainstream?
One in ten cars registered in the UK in August 2021 was fully electric, according to new figures from Electric Car Count, which tracks new car registrations in the UK. August’s new registrations data marked the moment that sales of electric cars overtook sales of diesels for the first time outside of a lockdown in the UK.
Ben Nelmes, Head of Policy and Research at New AutoMotive, said:
“It’s great to see electric car sales going from strength to strength. Another 6,000 motorists are set to benefit from cheaper running costs, a better driving experience - and we all benefit from cleaner air.
“August’s figures are yet more evidence that the transition to electric vehicles is gathering pace. The UK will benefit if the government acts now to ensure that the charging infrastructure is rolled out rapidly and that people are equipped with the skills they need to get ahead of the curve.
“This summer, we heard some people suggest that the UK should try to resist the inevitable transition to EVs; doing so would be like building sandcastles against the incoming tide.”
The full data release is available here. You can view the data on our interactive dashboard, here.
UK market overview
32,000 petrol cars were registered in August 2021, down from 50,000 in August 2020. That is a big change in one year, and marks the ongoing decline of pure petrol and diesel fuel types.
Table 3 provides a full UK market overview.
Regional highlights
The North East, Birmingham and London and Oxfordshire have emerged as hotspots for new EV registrations. One in five new cars bought in Oxfordshire is now fully electric. The average market share of pure electric cars in those areas is now:
North East - 16.4%
London - 18%
Birmingham - 16%
Oxfordshire - 20%
We present regional data on a three-month rolling average to account for irregular vehicle supply patterns.
The race for EV market share
For the second month in a row, VWs were the most numerous EVs bought by UK motorists, with Tesla languishing in fourth place. VW’s position in the market is markedly different to just a year ago; in August 2020 they sold just 100 EVs compared with 1,000 this year.
For the full data, and year-on-year comparisons, refer to table 1 in the full release.
The manufacturers who are quickest to electrify
Once again, Jaguar is the brand that has the highest share of EVs among its new registrations. (We exclude brands which are 100% electric from this ranking.) Of the volume brands, with circa 15% of sales fully electric, VW, Renault, Hyundai and Kia are electrifying their sales faster than the rest of the market (which was 10% fully electric).
For the full data, refer to table 2 in the full release.
Notes
About Electric Car Count
Electric Car Count is a monthly data series from New AutoMotive, a not-for-profit independent transport research organisation with a mission to accelerate and support the UK’s transition to electric vehicles. You can find out more about New AutoMotive by visiting www.newautomotive.org/mission
Electric Car Count provides an overview of the newly licensed passenger cars. It is released monthly, in the first few days of each month, providing data on the previous month’s newly licensed cars. In the UK, vehicles must be licensed (also known as registered) to be legally driven on UK roads.
We provide an overview of the state of the market, showing the number of cars registered by each manufacturer, broken down by fuel type. This provides a new way to track the transition to EVs in the UK.
Visit our interactive data dashboard here: www.newautomotive.org/ecc
For more background information on the statistics we provide, you can read our blog about the race for EV market share: www.newautomotive.org/blog/the-race-for-ev-market-share-is-under-way
Data sources & methodology
The data shows the number of type M1 vehicles (i.e. passenger cars) in the DVLA’s vehicle licensing database as it stands on, or shortly after, the 1st day of the month. The DVLA’s vehicle licensing database is the legal record of all vehicles licensed for use in the UK. We obtain the data from the DVLA’s vehicle enquiry service API, and the DVSA’s MOT history API.
The data covers all cars with a standard form UK vehicle registration mark (VRM, i.e. the vehicle’s number plate), but does not capture any vehicles with personalised VRMs.
Terminology
We use the following terms to refer to vehicle fuel types:
Pure electric: battery electric, or other purely electric-powered vehicles (such as hydrogen). These are vehicles where the drivetrain of the vehicle is only electric, with no facility to drive using a fossil fuelled engine.
Hybrid: vehicles that have the ability to drive under electric power or under fossil fuel power. These include vehicles classified by the DVLA as “hybrid electric”, “electric diesel”, for example.
Q&A
Why are the numbers different from other organisations, such as the SMMT?
Our numbers are typically slightly different from those published by the SMMT. We cannot speculate as to why this is because the SMMT do not publish the methodology for obtaining their vehicle data.
Our data is based on the DVLA’s legal record of vehicles licensed as it stands on the first of the month.
Our methodology does not capture newly registered vehicles with a personalised number plate. These take longer to appear in our database, and are not included in the monthly release. We do not believe that these are a statistically significant part of the market.
Will you make this data open and accessible to more organisations?
Yes, we are happy to supply the data to anyone where doing so will not conflict with our mission. We encourage people to reach out to us on data@newautomotive.org.
