UK new car registrations were down by 2.5% year-on-year in January amid a drop in fleet demand.

In contrast to a trend during 2024 of strong fleet sales making up for a weaker retail market, fleet registrations were down by 3.7% last month, while private registrations only fell by 0.5%.

Business registrations – classed as those to firms with fewer than 25 vehicles – rose by 2.4%, although these only made up 1.7% of the overall market.

Despite the fall in registrations compared with January 2024, fleets still accounted for 62.4% of the new car market last month.

In terms of fuel mix, there was strong growth in EV registrations, which rose by 41.6% to take 21.3% of the overall market – although the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), which publishes the registrations data, noted that this was still down on the 28% share required of each manufacturer by the UK Government’s ZEV mandate for 2025.

Plug-in hybrid registrations were up by 5.5%, taking 9% of the market, while conventional hybrid registrations were up by 2.9%, for a 13.2% market share.

Petrol car registrations were down by 15.3%, taking 50.3% of the market, while diesel registrations were down by 7.7% for a 6.2% market share.

The SMMT said that with EV demand not growing fast enough to match the ZEV mandate, the pending application of the VED ‘Expensive Car Supplement’ to EVs costing more than £40,000 from April 2025 was unwelcome.     

SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes said: “January’s figures show EV demand is growing – but not fast enough to deliver on current ambitions. Affordability remains a major barrier to uptake, hence the need for compelling measures to boost demand, and not just from manufacturers. 

“The application, therefore, of the ‘Expensive Car Supplement’ to VED on electric vehicles is the wrong measure at the wrong time.

“Rather than penalising EV buyers, we should be taking every step to encourage more drivers to make the switch, helping meet government, industry and societal climate change goals.” 

The Kia Sportage was the UK’s best-selling car in January, with 3,476 examples registered, just ahead of the Nissan Qashqai with 3,421, and the Vauxhall Corsa with 3,379.

Completing the top ten were the Volkswagen Golf (2,614 registrations), Peugeot 3008 (2,567), Peugeot 2008 (2,478), Ford Puma (2,332), Nissan Juke (2,320), MG HS (2,148), and MG ZS (2,107).