The latest new car registration figures show that the market grew 2.6% year on year in 2024, with electric vehicles achieving their highest ever annual share. December 2024 alone saw electric cars account for a record 31% of the market, although the full-year share closed at 19.6%, below the 22% set out by the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate
1.95m new vehicles were registered in 2024, the highest achieved since before the pandemic, with the 2.6% market growth representing the second successive year of growth. The annual increase was entirely driven by the fleet sector, up 11.8% to 1.16m units and accounting for 60% of new registrations.
Regarding fuel split of new registrations, December’s figures reflected the overall performance across the year, albeit to a greater magnitude. Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV), Plug-in Hybrids (PHEV) and Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV) all took greater share at the expense of petrol and diesel models.
Market share, full year 2024
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Petrol: 52.2% (down from 56.0%)
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BEV: 19.6% (up from 16.5%)
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HEV: 13.4% (up from 12.5%)
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PHEV: 8.6% (up from 7.4%)
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Diesel: 6.3% (down from 7.5%)
The overall trend of fleet registrations increasing while private interest cools continued in December, seeing fleet registrations (as recorded by the SMMT) growing their share of the market from 54.7% in 2023 to 59.6% in 2024.
Van market grows but electric share remains static
For light commercial vehicles, 2024 saw 3.0% year-on-year growth to reach a total market size of 351,834 units. Growth was delivered by vans of all sizes, while pickups (down 8.3% yoy) and 4x4s (down 9.7%) saw declines.
The largest part of the market – vans from >2.5-3.5t – grew 2.1% to 233,216 vehicles. Faster growth was seen among smaller vans, with <2.0t-2.5t up 12.3% and vehicles <=2.0t up 44.5%, albeit representing a more modest share of the total market.
Diesel remains the most popular fuel choice by a significant margin, retaining its 90%+ share of new registrations. In the first year of the ZEV mandate, electric van demand was static at 6.3%, short of the 10% target for 2024.
Full details available on the SMMT website:
