EV registrations grew steadily in June, despite an overall shrink in new vehicle registrations.
Despite the array of disruptions facing global supply chains and a cost of living crisis that is rapidly eroding consumer purchasing power, there continues to be a steady growth in sales of electric cars in the UK. This is driven by consumer demand - often fuelled by concerns about rising fuel prices - but is held back by a lack of vehicle supply.
⚡ What Our Data Shows
Ben Nelmes, Head of Policy and Research at New AutoMotive, said:
“Electric car sales defied gravity in June, continuing to grow while overall new car registrations were down by a quarter. Rising petrol and diesel prices are driving consumers towards electric cars, which are much cheaper per mile, but the supply of vehicles cannot keep pace with demand.”
“We hear that the typical delivery time for electric cars is now between 40 weeks and a year. The supply of electric vehicles is the biggest barrier to cleaner road transport in the UK.”
“The government’s planned California-style ZEV mandate should help attract a greater supply of electric cars to the UK as well as stimulating investment in UK battery manufacturing. But the government’s proposed target that car manufacturers should make 22% of their sales fully electric in 2024 looks likely to fall behind where new registrations are headed. It is vital that those targets keep pace with the market, and drive up EV registrations. Doing so would give consumers the cars they want, reduce the cost of motoring, reduce the UK’s reliance on Russian diesel and cut carbon emissions: it’s a no-brainer.”
The full data release is available here. You can view the data on our interactive dashboard, here.
📈 UK market overview
Total UK car registrations were down by 26% from June 2021, indicating the impact of global supply chain disruptions on the supply of vehicles, as well as the impact of the cost of living crisis on consumer purchasing power. Despite these headwinds, electric car registrations continued to grow, taking 16% of the market nationally.
📌 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 - 37%
East Anglia - 23%
North East England - 18%
London - 18%
Severn Valley - 16%
Refer to tables 4 & 5 for full regional statistics.
🚗 The race for EV market share
Tesla made a delivery in June, which gave them a 25% share of the market in that month. However, it appears they have been affected by global supply chain disruptions with a slight fall in their total new registrations when compared to June 2021. Kia, MG, Vauxhall and BMW all had significant growth in their EV sales.
For the full data, and year-on-year comparisons, refer to table 1 in the full release.
📊 The brands who are quickest to electrify
Jaguar are back in the top spot in June, with 2 in 5 new cars being fully electric. Of the high volume brands, MG and Kia are selling the most EVs as a percentage of their total sales. There are now over 20 brands which have >10% of their sales being fully electric, up from 10 last year.
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.
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.