Royal Mail deployed its 4,000th e-van in January
As we have come to expect, electric sales were not as strong in January as in previous months late last year. Just 4% of the new van market was electric in January, as the fuel type largely maintained its market position from this time last year. Despite this, there were positive signs for future growth in January, as Royal Mail deployed its 4,000th e-van - demonstrating just how effective a well planned electrification strategy can be.
⚡ What Our Data Shows
Ciara Cook, Research and Policy Officer at New AutoMotive, said:
“Despite January being a tough month for the transition, e-vans continue to be chosen by businesses and motorists as a crucial way to save money in the midst of a generational cost of living crisis. This is encouraging, but much more needs to be done to ensure this aspect of the transition continues to accelerate.”
“Months such as this are a stark reminder as to why an ambitious and forward thinking Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) mandate is the essential next step for the UK’s transition to electric transport. An effective mandate will be key to ensuring the adequate supply of e-vans, and allowing more and more businesses to access the savings they offer. A strong industry leading ZEV mandate is crucial, and must be finalised as soon as possible.”
“It is critical that the government continues to support the transition by avoiding any further delay to the finalisation of the ZEV mandate. With the policy posed to kick in by 2024, it is imperative the government fast tracks this as a priority as any delay could be disastrous.”
The full data release is available here. You can view the data on our interactive dashboard, here.
📈 UK market overview
E-vans accounted for around 4% of the total share of the market this month.
For the full data, and year-on-year comparisons, refer to table 1 in the full release.
🚗 The race for EV market share
Peugeot tops this table, with 22% of all e-vans sales this month. The marque is proving popular with motorists and, as a result, is beginning to regularly claim the highest share of the electric van market. Maxus, in second place, continues to disrupt the market. Maxus claimed 17% of the e-van market in January - a clear sign that Chinese disruptors like itself may make a significant impact in this market segment. Maxus’s growth looks set to continue, as the manufacturer has recently implemented a scrappage scheme through which motorists can trade in a registered vehicle and save up to £14,000 on a new Maxus e-van. With two thirds of the market being made up by the top four manufacturers it will be important for those slipping behind to begin ramping up production and sales, or else risk fighting for hotly contested market share in an already buoyant market.
📊 The brands who are quickest to electrify
Again, Maxus dominates this table - 75% of its registrations were electric in January. Its closest rival, Peugeot, comes in at 16% electric for January - demonstrating just how far ahead Maxus is this month. At the bottom of this table is Ford, with just 1% of its sales being electric this month. Ford has the most to lose by not increasing its share of new e-van registrations - they have the most popular van model in the UK, and will need to start accelerating their transition to electric if they want to maintain their dominance in the British van market as the transition to electric transport progresses. There has been some positive news for the marque this month though. They have signed a deal with DHL which will see them supply the delivery company with 2,000 e-vans, a deal which could see them higher up these tables in the coming months.
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 Van Count
Electric Van 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 Van Count provides an overview of the newly licensed vans. It is released monthly, on the second Monday of each month, providing data on the previous month’s newly licensed vans. 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 Electric vans in the UK.
Visit our interactive data dashboard here: https://newautomotive.org/evc
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 N1 vehicles (vehicles for the carriage of goods with a maximum mass not exceeding 3.5 tonnes) 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 vans 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.