One in seven of all new registrations were for an EV in August
August saw strong growth in electric car sales. Fully electric vehicles rose from 10% to 14% market share, meaning one in seven of all new registrations were for an EV - compared to just one in ten in August last year. Both petrol and diesel registrations remained steady, whilst hybrid sales fell. Electric car sales appear to have grown at the expense of hybrid sales, with consumers increasingly preferring fully electric cars to hybrids.
⚡ What Our Data Shows
Ben Nelmes, Head of Policy and Research at New AutoMotive, said:
“As the cost of living crisis worsens, UK motorists continue to turn towards cheaper-to-run electric vehicles. Even with the increase in the Ofgem price cap for electricity in October, EVs will continue to offer running cost savings compared to ICE models. With the price of oil still at around $100 per barrel, it looks extremely unlikely that petrol or diesel cars will be able to compete with EVs on running costs in the near future.”
”The new Prime Minister and Transport Secretary should make EVs a key part of their response to the cost of living crisis. The new government should consider incentives for leasing new and second hand electric vehicles and interest-free finance to help the most car-dependent families get access to the benefits of going electric.” “An early win for the next Transport Secretary would be to announce strong targets for electric car sales as part of the California-style ZEV mandate, which is due to be unveiled later this autumn.”
The full data release will be available here. You can view the data on our interactive dashboard, here when it is published.
📈 UK market overview
Total UK car registrations remained steady since last August, with few changes in the share of fuel types. Pure electric cars grew in both sales volume and market share - the only fuel type to do so. This growth came largely at the expense of hybrid cars.
📌 Regional highlights
We track regional registrations using a three-month rolling average, which masks big variations in EV market share from month to month. The DVLA regions with the highest share of EVs are as follows:
Oxfordshire - 32%
Anglia - 27%
North East England - 21%
London - 19%
Birmingham - 17%
Refer to tables 4 & 5 for full regional statistics.
🚗 The race for EV market share
Unusually for a month in which Tesla made deliveries, BMW took the top spot, securing 11.4% of the EV market. This could be due to a number of reasons; supply chain disruptions have impacted some manufacturers’ supply of right hand drive cars. BMW took the top spot with sales of electric BMW models more than tripling in a year.
For the full data, and year-on-year comparisons, refer to table 1 in the full release.
📊 The brands who are quickest to electrify
Of the mass market brands, BMW made a strong showing in this list. Last year only one in 20 new BMWs sold was fully electric; in August, electric models were responsible for just over 25% of their total sales. Similarly, Peugeot is making great strides towards electrification, with the electric share of their sales rising from 12.6% to 21.8% in a year. New brands Genesis and Cupra are also notable for their strong electric showing, though with low (in the case of Genesis - extremely low) sales volumes.
We exclude brands that are 100% electric from this table since they do not need to electrify their sales. For the full data, refer to table 2 in the full release.
⚡ The ZEV Mandate explained
What is the ZEV mandate?
The government has promised to introduce a scheme known as a ‘Zero Emissions Vehicle Mandate’, known more commonly as a ZEV mandate. The ZEV mandate is a system of legally binding targets that requires car and van manufacturers to sell an increasing number of zero emissions cars and vans as a proportion of all the cars and vans they sell. This is a kind of policy that has been used for cars in California and China, and is very similar to the system the UK has used to successfully incentivise renewable electricity, known as the ‘Renewables Obligation’.
How do the targets work?
The targets are set as a percentage figure, and will start at 22% in 2024. That means that in 2024, 22% of all cars sold by any manufacturer must be zero emissions. The targets will gradually increase over time. If a manufacturer cannot meet their target, they must either pay a penalty or buy some ‘surplus’ from a manufacturer who has exceeded their targets.
Is this the same thing as the 2030 and 2035 phase-out of sales of petrol, diesel and hybrid cars and vans?
Not quite. The ZEV mandate is the policy that will encourage car manufacturers to shift to selling only zero emissions vehicles in line with the 2030 and 2035 deadlines. This is the policy that will make that ambition a reality. There are also other things the government is doing to realise that ambition, for example investing in charge points and using tax breaks for cars and grants for vans.
When will the ZEV mandate come into force?
It will come into force from 2024. The scheme is currently being designed by the Department for Transport, who recently consulted on how it might work. You can read about their plans here.
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.