Sales of new electric cars are growing fastest in North East England and Oxfordshire , while nationally sales of diesel cars continue to collapse. New AutoMotive’s monthly data release, the Electric Car Count, which tracks new car registrations in the UK, shows that electric cars are proving popular across the country, and that sales of fully electric cars have experienced another month of growth.

Ben Nelmes, Head of Policy and Research at New AutoMotive, said:

“Across the UK demand for electric cars continues to grow, with the most significant surge in sales happening in the North East.

“Polluting diesel car sales continue to decline, and in London and Newcastle there are now more new electric cars sold each month than new diesel vehicles.”

“Electric cars are being embraced across the UK - more and more drivers are discovering the benefits of cheaper running costs, convenient home charging and a better experience behind the wheel. All while doing their bit for the planet.”

“There is no denying that the switch to electric is well under way. Now we need local councils to ensure that charging infrastructure is in place as Brits ditch petrol and diesel guzzlers for clean electric.”

The full data release is available here.

UK market overview

As the UK emerges from lockdown, sales of diesel cars have not recovered while sales of fully electric cars continue to grow. Electric car sales have grown from 2,224 in May 2020 to 11,769 in May 2021 - that’s over 500% growth. 1 in 5 cars sold in May was a hybrid.

While the share of new cars that are fully electric has fallen slightly when compared to May 2020, this is likely to reflect the fact that the UK car market had been distorted by lockdown measures in 2020, which disproportionately depressed sales of petrol and diesel cars in that month.

Refer to table 3 for a full UK market overview.

Regional highlights

The following regions have experienced strong growth in EV sales in the last year:

The North East, where electric cars sales grown from 4% of the market to 11% in the last year
Oxfordshire, where sales of electric cars have jumped from 8% of the market to 19% - nearly one in five of all new cars sold is fully electric
Anglia, where electric cars have gone from 3% of the market to 9% of the market in the last year
The Severn Valley, where sales of electric cars have gone from 2% to 8%

London now averages 2,000 new fully electric cars sold every month, with electric cars taking 12% of the market in the capital. Sales of fully electric cars now outnumber sales of new diesel cars, which account for just 10% of new car sales in London.

We present regional data on a three-month rolling average to account for irregular vehicle supply patterns.

Refer to tables 4 & 5 for full regional statistics.

The race for EV market share

Most new electric cars registered in May ‘21 were Teslas, but Tesla had only 14% of the market. They were closely followed by VW, with Hyundai also putting in a strong showing. Below we display the top ten makes of newly registered electric cars in the UK in May ‘21, along with their share of the market.

For the full data, and year-on-year comparisons, refer to table 1 in the full release.

The manufacturers who are quickest to electrify

Porsche has held on to the top spot in May, with 37% of all new Porsches being fully electric. Of the volume brands, Renault, Hyundai and Nissan all had strong sales of EVs in May, with 26%, 19% and 16% of their new car sales being fully electric, respectively.

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.

Volkswagen is topping the charts, again