4th Jul 2025 09:48
(Alliance News) - The UK's new car market continued to improve in June, led by electric vehicles and following a return to growth in May, data from industry body the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders showed on Friday.
According to SMMT, the new car market had a "bumper June" as new registrations rose 6.7% to 191,316 units from 179,263 a year earlier, representing the best performance for the month since 2019.
However, despite the advance in June, registrations remain below pre-pandemic levels, said SMMT, down 14% on 2019.
Battery electric car purchases climbed 39% to 47,354 units in June from 34,034 a year prior, lifting EV market share to just under 25%. SMMT noted that this is still below UK government-mandated levels, but added that the data indicated one in four buyers go electric.
SMMT said the lack of UK government incentives, coupled with fiscal disincentives are acting a a break on battery electric vehicle demand. It added that industry bosses have cited fiscal incentives for private BEV sales as the "biggest single action needed to boost BEV demand, economic growth and the UK's automotive manufacturing base – a key objective of government's new industrial strategy".
Ian Plummer, commercial director at Auto Trader Group PLC, commented: "June's numbers show a decent performance for the UK new car market, with registrations outperforming last year and a welcome rebound in retail demand as retailers work hard for sales. The standout story is the surge in electric vehicle sales."
He added: "We should sound a note of caution, though. New EV sales are still running below the 28% target for this year under the zero emissions vehicle mandate. Moreover, on current trends, according to our latest 'road to 2030' report we're likely to fall well short of the 80% target in five years' time.
In June, the market share of petrol vehicles declined below 50% to 46.0% from 51.3% a year before. Diesel's share declined to 5.6% from 6.0%. Plug-in hybrids rose to 11.2% share from 9.3%, but other hybrids slipped to 12.5% from 14.5%.
This left the combined share of petrol and diesel vehicles at 51.6%, down from 57.3%, and the combined share of electrified vehicles at 48.5%, up from 42.8%.
By Christopher Ward, Alliance News reporter
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