August 2020 car sales report –

Overall car August car sales are down 5.8% to 87,226 but Electric Vehicles, PHEVs and hybrids continue to grow while diesel sales fall. Details below

Glossary

Diesel – standard cars powered by diesel engines and are slowly being replaced by diesel MHEV’s

Diesel MHEV – also known as Mild Hybrids these are simply a new diesel cars with the same engines and a slightly (around 2-3%) more efficient starter motor. Although marketed as hybrids they really are not real hybrids as they can’t travel an inch or even a cm on electric power. We include diesel MHEV’s our diesel totals on our charts

Petrol – standard cars powered by petrol engines and are slowly being replaced by petrol MHEVs

Petrol MHEV – also known as Mild Hybrids these are simply a new petrol car with the same engines and a slightly (around 2-3%) more efficient starter motor. Although marketed as hybrids they really are not real hybrids as they can’t travel an inch or even a cm on electric power

BEV Battery Electric Vehicles. These pure electric vehicles run without any petrol or diesel engine and are set to replace all piston engine cars & vans. They are cheaper to run and maintain and reduce CO2 by over 60%+ compared to fossil fuel powered cars. Charge times are much faster than on PHEVs and on long trips usually involve brief stops of 15 – 35 mins. The record distance travelled in 24 hrs in a Tesla Model 3 including all charging time is over 1700 miles so high mileage is not an issue on the right BEV that can charge at 100kW or quicker

PHEV Plugin Hybrid Vehicles – these cars can run on petrol or diesel or electric power. They can be more efficient than pure petrol or diesel cars but are hampered on using EV mode because most have small batteries that are very slow to charge and then only manage 15 to 30 miles electric range. There are now a few PHEVs than can DC charge quickly and have range of 40-50 miles.

HEV Hybrid Electric Vehicles – these are personified by the standard Toyota Prius. All the power comes from a piston engine (you can’t plug them in and they do not “self charge” but like a BEV a hybrid uses electric motors to drive at low speed or help boost the petrol engine at higher speeds and harvests energy from braking to boost efficiency. As a result Prius sized hybrids can be more efficient in urban driving than other piston cars.

August 2020 diesel sales fall while Electric and hybrid sales rise

• Overall diesel car sales including MHEVs continue to fall to 19.8% from 19.9% in July 2020 and from 27% share in August 2019. Diesel sales for the year up to August are now 192,964 compared to 415,500 in 2019.
• Total petrol sales were flat at 64.1% in August 2020 compared to 64.2% a year ago. Year to August petrol car sales are 590,417 compared to 1,007,540 last year.
• BEV share in August continued to rise to 6.4% up from 4.7% in July 2020 and from 3.4% in August 2019. Total BEV sales for the year to August are 44,708 up from 17,393 at the same point in 2019. BEV share for the year to August is now 4.7% up from 1.1% last year.
• PHEVs also had a good August with sales up to 2,922 from only 910 last year.. an increase in share from 1% to 3.3%
• HEVs also had a good month up to 6.4% from 4.3% last year
• Pure electric market share is continuing to increase helped by the attraction for company car buyers of a massive personal tax saving for choosing an electric car instead of a petrol or diesel.
• It is even more impressive as Tesla had limited deliveries of only 1,025 cars down 55% on August 2019. Reports are that Tesla delivery ships are arriving in Europe for September as is the new VW ID.3. As a result EV sales will be interesting in September with high unit sales likely although share of sales will be squeezed as it is a big volume month for all car sales
• Tesla UK sales for the year to August were 12.244 (a 1.34% share) up from 5,097 or 0.34% a year earlier. This puts it just behind Mazda, Jaguar and Honda but ahead of brands like Lexus, Porsche, Fiat and Suzuki