Almost one in four new cars registered in June was electric, though this achievement came at a cost: over the last 18 months, car makers have knocked an “unsustainable” £6.5bn off EV list prices.
A total of 191,316 new cars found homes last month, up 6.7% on the same month last year; the 47,354 EVs sold counted for 24.8% of registrations, up from 19%.
Petrol cars made up 46% of last month’s market (down from 51.3% a year ago) with just over 88,000 registrations. Hybrid cars, both conventional and plug-in, made up 23.7% of registrations, down from last June’s 28.3%. Diesel held just 5.6% of the market, down from 6% 12 months ago.
Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, which compiled the data, said that while it was “good news” that June marked the second consecutive month of market growth, the rise of EV registrations goes hand-in-hand with car makers “using every channel” to encourage sales, as they offer what he termed “unsustainable discounting”.
Brands are reducing EV prices by thousands of pounds as they attempt to woo buyers into them. These discounts come on top of the billions the UK government is forgoing in tax receipts by way of incentives offered via salary-sacrifice electric-car schemes, and lost Fuel Duty revenue.
Despite last month’s relatively impressive EV performance, registrations were still below the 28% mandate demanded by Westminster policy. More worrying, they remain at just 21.6% year-to-date.
Short of a miracle, it will be almost impossible for manufacturers to escape either fines of £15,000 per petrol/diesel car over quota at the end of the year, or the need to buy mandate ‘credits’ from car makers who beat the 28% quota. This is likely to involve traditional car makers paying EV-only brands like the US giant Tesla, and Chinese newcomer BYD millions for credits to avoid paying the UK government even more in fines.
Around 96% of the cars on UK roads need petrol or diesel to run, while around 90% of new retail sales go to petrol, diesel and hybrid cars.
