Private new car sales in August ended up almost exactly the same as last year, being just 0.2% or 55 units ahead of last August according to industry data published by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) this morning.
Fleet registrations were down 1%, however, meaning the overall market ended up slightly down on the same month last year. It’s the first time in more than two years that the overall market has been down – mind you, with a summer that consisted of an Olympic games, a general election and the Euros football tournament, it’s not surprising that deliveries are down.
It’s also worth pointing out that August last year was the worst August private new car sales performance since 2012, so in improvement of 0.2% is hardly worth getting excited about…
What will be far more interesting is how the market performs in September, traditionally the second-largest month of the year after March. New number plates rolled out this week, which is traditionally a big boost to registration numbers. However, March’s results for private new car sales were pretty dire, so the industry will be hoping for much better this month.
August and February, the two months immediately preceding number plate changes, are always the slowest months of the year and see significant fluctuations in results, depending on how many manufacturers are pushing cars out and how many are holding back for the plate-change months. So there’s no point reading too much into the August sales data, and any particularly good or bad results should be taken with a pinch of salt.
EV sales continue to outperform the overall market
If you read a lot of the articles published by various mainstream media outlets, you’d be forgiven for thinking that electric car sales have completely stopped. But that’s entirely untrue. New EV sales have outperformed the overall new car market virtually all year long and that overperformance is accelerating. That’s not surprising, given the requirements of all major car companies to now have minimum EV sales numbers.
In August, EV sales were up 11% against an overall market that was down 1%. Meanwhile, petrol registrations were down 10% and diesel down 7%. Basic hybrids were up 36%, while plug-in hybrids were surprisingly down 12% after about a year of steady growth.
Although we just mentioned above that numbers should be taken with a pinch of salt, one noteworthy point about August’s EV results is that they came despite yet another poor month for Tesla – the UK’s biggest electric car brand – whose sales were down 25% on the same month last year. That’s good news for the overall market, and also suggests that EV sales will be further bolstered once Tesla gets its German factory issues sorted out.
Good month, bad month
There’s always quite a lot of market fluctuation across the various car companies in August, and this year was no different.
It was a good month for Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Alpine, BYD, Cupra, Dacia, DS Automobiles, Honda, Jaguar, Jeep, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Renault, SEAT, Smart, Subaru and Volvo. All of these outperformed the overall market by at least 10% (so had growth of at least 8.7% against a market that was down 1.3%)
Meanwhile, results weren’t so good for Bentley, Fiat, Ford, Genesis, GWM Ora, Ineos, Lexus, Maserati, MG, Mini, Polestar, Porsche, Suzuki, Tesla and Vauxhall. All of these underperformed against the overall market by at least 10% (so had sales down by at least 11.3% and, in some cases, much more).
That means that the following car brands were about where we’d expect them to be: Audi, BMW, Citroën, Hyundai, Kia, Mazda, Peugeot, Skoda, Toyota and Volkswagen.
Volkswagen continued to be the UK’s top-selling car brand, ahead of Audi, Ford, Kia and BMW. In volume terms, rather than percentage, Volvo had the largest growth year-on-year with registrations up by almost 1,200 units. Going in the other direction, Vauxhall had the largest fall with sales down by almost 2,300 units.
Puma back on top
The Ford Puma was the UK’s best-selling new car in August, returning to the top of the pile after the Kia Sportage – which dropped to second – had been the number one car for the last couple of months. That means that the Puma edges further ahead of the Sportage in the race for the 2024 sales crown, with a lead of more than 2,000 units with fourth months to go.
Volkswagen had three cars in the top ten, with the Polo, Golf and T-Roc all making the best-sellers’ list. The T-Roc also jumped from tenth to ninth in year-to-date sales.
However, with September likely to be a massive month for car sales, the year-to-date top ten could look rather different next month. Check back in on 4th October to find out!
- The UK’s best-selling new cars (updated monthly)
- More car industry news and analysis at The Car Expert
