The number of new cars purchased by private buyers in the UK last year was lower than in 2020, when the country was in the midst of the Covid pandemic.
About 746,000 cars were sold to private buyers in 2024, about 1,000 fewer than five years ago, when car buying was temporarily halted due to lockdowns. It also decreased by 8.7% in 2023.
Despite this, car sales rose by 2.6% in 2023 to 1.95 million cars. However, 1.16 million of those were fleet sales (up 11.8% year-on-year), accounting for six out of every 10 new cars sold.
Mike Hawes, chairman of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), said this was a worrying situation, as the split between private and fleet sales was close to even.
Howes blamed the decline in private sales on buyers’ “confusion about which car to buy”, a comment that took aim at mixed messages from the government over the past few years.
This was a major reason why many carmakers fell short of the government’s 22% zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) target, SMMT claimed, with only one in 10 new cars sold to private buyers being battery-powered.
The 19.6% market share, although below target, was a record for EVs – one of the few positives to come this year. During 2024, 381,959 electric vehicles were sold, an increase of 21.4% over 2023 – the largest rise of the year.
This total made electric cars the second most popular type of car after gasoline (1.02 million sales) and “self-charging” hybrids (261,396).
In a sign of the times, sales of petrol cars fell by about 40,000 cars from 2023, and fewer than 125,000 diesel cars were sold.
“This should be a success story, with a record share of electric vehicle sales and [overall] “The numbers are going up,” Hawes told reporters at an end-of-year news conference. “But instead the cost of providing this and that [EV sales] They remain shy of the ZEV government’s goals, casting a shadow.
He added: “If we don’t have it [ZEV] State, we can say that this has been a good year.
Howes used the 2024 results to call on the government again to reinstate purchasing incentives for electric car buyers, which were withdrawn in 2022. This will be in the form of reduced VAT on car purchases and VAT parity between public and home charging.
“Incentives make a big difference, because they help people in these vehicles while also sending the right messages,” Hawes said.
He added that fleet incentives – which are offered through in-kind tax breaks – should be passed on to private buyers.
Similarly, Paul Philpott, head of Kia UK, told Autocar: “There are not enough islands for consumers, other than in the fleet market, and fleet users are proving that when they have relatively reasonable incentives behind electric cars, buyers want to try them; “They are more conservative in moving in numbers.”