New Car Sales down again in July – but ELECTRIC CAR sales UP by 158%

New car registrations in the UK fell by more than 4 per cent in July 2019, but sales of electric cars almost tripled to take a 1.4 per cent market share.

New car sales in the UK continued to decline in July, with registrations down by 4.1 per cent to 157,198, the lowest figure for seven years.

Daftly, although no surprise, is the continued demise of diesel-engined cars, which suffered a fall of 22.1 per cent compared to the same period in 2018, but petrol-engined cars continued their revival with sale up by 2.6 per cent and a market share of 65.8 per cent.

Perhaps the most interesting news is the figures for electric car sales, which rose almost three-fold from 880 in July 2018 to 2,271 in July 2019 for a, still small, market share of 1.4 per cent.

That contrasts with the decline of plug-in hybrids after the government scrapped the incentive to buy, with sales falling from 3,503 in July 2018 to 1,764 in July 2019.

But if you add total sales for electric and plug-in hybrid cars together, sales in July 2018 were 4,383 and in July 2019 4,035 so, although the total is a decline, it’s nowhere near as dramatic as the headline drop for PHEVs would suggest.

Makers of plug-in hybrid cars won’t thank us for saying it, but does that prove the government was right to scrap the grant for PHEVs?