1 in 10 new cars is an EV
Sales of new fully electric cars jumped in June, according to the latest data from Electric Car Count, which tracks new car registrations in the UK. June registrations showed strong growth in electric car sales, and the continued decline of new diesel registrations. New diesel and new fully electric cars are battling it out for third place in the new car market.
Ben Nelmes, Head of Policy and Research at New AutoMotive, said:
“Electric car sales saw strong growth in June, with one in ten new cars registered in the UK now fully electric, with zero emissions at the tailpipe.
“While petrol remains the most popular fuel type, the growth of registrations of new hybrid vehicles is a concern. Hybrids are not zero emissions cars, and the UK needs to see faster growth in zero emissions, fully electric cars to meet its net zero target. Ministers should consider introducing a California-style scheme to encourage more investment in EV manufacturing and production. This would benefit consumers, create jobs and reduce emissions.”
The full data release is available here. Alternatively, you can view the data on our interactive dashboard, here.
UK market overview
Almost 16,000 new fully electric cars were registered in June 2021 - the highest share of the market so far this year. Similarly, new diesel car registrations have never recovered from the collapse in sales during the pandemic.
Table 3 provides a full UK market overview.
Regional highlights
The North East, London and the South East continue to be hotspots for new EV registrations. North East England now averages 13% of all newly registered cars being fully electric.
We present regional data on a three-month rolling average to account for irregular vehicle supply patterns.
The race for EV market share
Tesla had the largest market share of new EVs in June 2021 by a wide margin, but Volkswagen and Kia also sold significant numbers of their fully electric models.
For the full data, and year-on-year comparisons, refer to table 1 in the full release.
The manufacturers who are quickest to electrify
Of the volume brands, Renault appears to be a clear leader in the transition to fully electrified sales. Almost one in three new Renaults in June was fully electric. This data excludes manufacturers and brands whose sales are 100% 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 is 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.
