The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) has released its monthly figures for the car registrations in the UK, which show a strong jump in all forms of electrified vehicles with pure ICE down again. The reports show pure EV sales are up by 18.8%, plug-in-hybird (PHEV) up by 12.4% and standard hybrids (HEV) up by 31.4%.

The SMMT also shows that the car market in the UK is also recovering, with a growth of 2.5% in July 2024, showing two years of consecutive growth. This is important, as this is the best July since 2020.

SMMT data also shows that the private market share for BEVs has dropped from 20.3% to 17.3%, compared to 2023. This is conducive to the entire private sector, regardless of fuel type which itself was down by 11.9%. Fleet sales are often misunderstood for just being company cars, but these can be anything from salary sacrifice to personal lease agreements, which when this data is concerned, shows up as fleet.

Also, the most popular car in July 2024 was the Kia Sportage with 3,999 registrations and 2024 to data is the Ford Puma, with 29,792.

Felicity Latcham of OC&C Strategy Consultants provides comment on the new figures, stating that this is a realistic, yet positive step in the right direction in order to hit government carbon neutral targets:

“July’s car registration figures reveal a positive uplift from June both in volume of vehicles registered (up 2.5%, 5.5% year to date), and a positive headline shift towards carbon neutrality with 18.8% uplift in BEVS this month compared to the 7.4% uplift in June. However the growth both overall, and in BEVs is underpinned by adoption in fleet, with private sales down 11% YoY. This is reflected in the research conducted by OC&C, where our speedometer report showed personal appetite for EVs to be slowing, despite 44% of people acknowledging the rising costs of petrol and diesel, and the 2024 report (to be published) showing 31% of individual drivers reporting delaying their car purchase because of the cost of living"

Our take

Again, it is good to see EV sales up again for another month with a growing market share but it does need more. SMMT pointed out that while it has grown, it is behind the mandated trajectory.

Source: SMMT