New car registrations for private car buyers DROP again in June

New car registrations in June 2024 rose by a tiny 1.1%, but sales to private buyers dropped by 15.3%, just 37.7% of the market.

We’ve got used over the last nine months to seeing car sales rise very modestly, but that rise is entirely down to sales to fleets.

June was no different, and despite an overall rise of a tiny 1.2% in overall sales for the month, retail sales dropped again – this time by 15.3% – with fleet sales rising by 14.2% to achieve the small overall growth.

Electrified cars – that’s HEV, BEV and PHEV – continued to grow, with hybrid vehicle registrations up by 27.2%, PHEV up by 30.0% and BEV a more modest 7.4%.

Again, the modest rise in BEV sales – which accounted for 16.6% of new car registrations – is entirely down to Fleet sales, with sales to private buyers down by 10.8% this year, and despite the BEV uptake from Fleets is down overall 0.5% on last year. Which isn’t going to help car makers hit the mandated 22% target for EVs.

Top sellers in June were the Kia Sportage and Nissan Juke, followed by the Tesla Model Y.

Mike Hawes, SMMT boss, said:

The year’s midpoint sees the new car market in its best state since 2021 – but this belies the bigger challenge ahead. The private consumer market continues to shrink against a difficult economic backdrop, but with the right policies in place, the next government can re-energise the market and deliver a faster, fairer zero emission transition. All parties are agreed on the need to cut carbon and replacing older fossil fuel based technologies with new electrified powertrains is the essential step to achieving that goal.