[Update] No crisis, no crash - Electric cars have strongest start to the year on record
Strongest ever January, with sales up 34% on January 2024
In our excitement about sharing the good news, we forgot to update the link. Here’s the right one.
Welcome to the latest edition of Electric Car Count, your monthly update on electric car, van, motorbike and HGV sales in the UK - and the most up-to-date, free, comprehensive and detailed publication covering the EV transition in the UK. Let’s dive in!
Here is the news
Over 1 in 5 new cars was an EV in January 2025, as battery electric cars take 21.5% market share, their highest ever January figure.
EV sales grew by 34% compared with last year, when just 15% of new cars were electric.
Petrol and diesel sales continued to decline, tumbling from 50% last January to 38% this month, as motorists opt for cleaner, cheaper cars. [We use official DVLA classifications here, unlike certain other data providers]
A record-breaking start (to another record-breaking year?)
Electric car registrations had their best ever January, both in absolute volumes (27,677) and market share (21.5%). Just look at those sales flagging!!!
Chinese firms take over the UK market. Er, not.
All but one of the firms in the top 10 were traditional automakers. 5 of the 6 top sellers are European makers. There are precisely zero Chinese makers in the top 10. The UK-made Mini is the 10th largest EV marque - 43% of their sales were battery electric.
UK regulation, in the shape of the ZEV mandate, is encouraging everyone to get with the programme and make the cars of the future. Only Japanese makers are entirely missing from the top 10 - the biggest maker, Nissan, only registered 638 EVs in January, taking 20th place.
ZEV mandate is driving progress
Like “unprecedented discounting” (much the same as 2019), “unaffordable levels of support” (less than the support given to ICE sales) and “sales flagging” (see above), you’ll hear many times that this year’s target is 28%.
Wrong. Manufacturers can transfer outperformance against easy-to-reach CO2 targets for their petrol, diesel and hybrid sales into the ZEV mandate to lower their targets. Most firms could do this in 2024, most will again in 2025. We estimate on January’s sales that when credits from outperformance are taken into account the industry target is 23.1%.
Crazy disruptor firms BMW (owners of Mini) and Mercedes (joint owners of Smart) are already ahead of their targets, whilst maverick tech bros VW Group (owners of Audi amongst many others) are very close to meeting theirs.
The UK’s world-leading Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate is behind all this progress. Don’t let Ministers succumb to siren calls to water it down. You can respond to the consultation on the mandate’s future. We’ll be publishing our response on our website and sharing highlights here via Substack.
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