My Urban Car

UK Car market report – November 2019


November 2019 snapshot

  • UK Battery electric car sales (BEV) are 333% compared to Novermber 2018 to 3% (0.9%). About 2,400 of the 4,652 sales were Tesla’s including around 2,000 Model 3s. Without Tesla Model 3 Electric cars are up around 86%
  • Last year plugin hybrid sales (PHEVs) outsold Eletric BEVs by 2 to 1 but as PHEV’s are now outsold both in November with a 2.8% share and for the year to date.
  • Hybrids that don’t plugin are still growing to 4.5% of the market up from 3.9%
  • Total AFV sales not counting MHEVs is now 10.3%
  • Pure combustion engine car sales are falling overall and are likely to continue to fall from now on but still dominate
  • Petrol market share reached 62.2% (60.2%). Including petrol MHEVs petrol share is 64.6%, but diesel sales including diesels with a new starter motor (MHEV diesels) are at 25% (32.4%). This is heavily down on last year but pretty much steady compared recent months

Diesel

Figures from the SMMT show UK diesel car market share is at the lowest in over a decade. September 2019 market share is 22.6%, well under one in four. To these we should really add 2% for diesel MHEVs so a combined diesel share of 24.6%, still a record low.

Diesel sales are dominated by fleet sales and luxury brands

Diesel emissions regulations

From September 2019 all diesels have to pass a real world emissions test called RDE. This was going to cut the number of diesels still legal to sell anyway but a court ruling in spring 2019 made it conceivable these diesels have to pass the 2015 Euro 6 limit of a maximum of 80mg/km of NOx on the road.

Dieselmakers had previously persuaded the EU to help dirty diesels cars pass the test by allowing them to call anything under 163mg/km legal. The court ruled that the EU commission acted illegally in raising the limit above 80mg for the real world test. If upheld fewer diesels will be on sale and cleaning up survivors will make them more expensive to build and run. The EU commission and German government are committed to ensuring diesels won’t have to achieve the 2015 Euro 6 limits when on the road and in cities across Europe. They plan to do this by changing the law before the end of 2019.

AFV – hybrid, plugin hybrid & electric

Hybrid, Plugin hybrid (PHEV) sales included in our monthly snapshot along with Electric vehicles that form a small but growing share of AFV sales so we cover them separately below.

The UK alternatively fuelled vehicle stats now include MHEV or “mild hybrid” models. Only electrified in a marketing sense these so called hybrids are standard petrol & diesel MHEVs can’t travel an inch on electric drive & offer a tiny CO2 / Economy benefit of around 4%. MHEV sales will grow for a while as they will become the final iteration of pure fossil fuel combustion engine technology. We will not include them in our AFV figures

Electric Vehicles

Electric cars ended 2018 with just under 0.7% share of the UK car market, with sales of 15,474.

On a like for like basis from January to Nov UK Electric car sales are up from 13,970 in 2018 to 32,911. It’s still a very small share of a 2.16m market and a long way from the tipping point of 11% sales of over 5% next year look quite possible.

2019 has seen more segments of the car market offering an EV option and but many long range EVs have waiting lists of 12 months or more if they can be ordered at all and it looks increasingly likely the situation will remain the same through 2019 and 2020 before improving in 2021.

Key models to watch for 2019 are the :

  • Tesla model 3 now being delivered in large volumes by quarter (but these vary as some months get a boatload of Model 3s and some don’t) . Delivery times are a little haphazard but 3 months or less is likely.
  • Hyundai Kona (on sale but did have a 10+month waiting list for delivery)
  • MG XS EV. Could be a surprise hit thanks to acceptable range in a roomy SUV body style at a very reasonable price but it hasn’t happened yet.
  • Kia Niro and Soul EV siblings of the Kona also have long wait times
  • Jaguar I-Pace on sale now
  • Audi e-Tron
  • Vapourware Mercedes EQC and BMW iX3 will probably not reach customers till 2020
  • the VW iD is now likely to be sold out for the entire 2020 production before the year begins
  • There are waiting lists and limited production for all these EVs

David Nicholson

David Nicholson Is the founder of Rivergecko Ltd & MyUrbanCar which provide consultancy and advice for drivers and fleets to speed the transition from dirty fossil fuel transport to clean vehicles powered by renewable energy on land water and air.

The @MyUrbanCar twitter feed is a source of news & reviews of electric & plugin cars and vans in the UK.
The @rivergecko twitter feed & www.myurbancar.com websites bring news and opinion on cleantech transport including cars, vans, buses, trucks, shipping, rail & aviation as well as autonomous vehicles & renewable energy, air pollution & motor industry news.

David Nicholson has worked as an underwriter at Lloyd's of London since the 1980's. His interest in technology goes back many years including interactive mapping, apps, green tech, boats, solar and cars.