January 2018 UK car sales

Heading into 2018 and the diesel slide continues. Far from being confused car buyers are shunning the fuel.

Some of the fall is down to concern about future government action on diesel but buyers are also seeing real world stats that show how much more polluting diesels are than petrol, plugin hybrid and EV alternatives. If nothing else this is reinforced by the pungent smell of NO2 you get from diesels new and old whether they are idling or going past.

In urban areas where diesels do the most harm to health action to ban them is becoming almost certain. By claiming all new diesels are clean the industry is throwing away the opportunity to exempt the very few really diesels from action.

January 2018 diesel market share is down to 35.9% market share compared to a full 2017 average of 42%. This tweet refers to 2 big bits of news. 75% of private buyers are now avoiding diesel while even fleets have a diesel market share below 50%.

Only 1 in 4 private buyers picks a #diesel-fleets are slowly switching too “Diesel accounted for 45.7% of fleet registrations in January, slightly behind petrol at 48.5% but almost double its share of the private market where only around a quarter of new cars had a Diesel engine” https://t.co/CDPA09L9Zc

— David Nicholson (@rivergecko) February 5, 2018