Growth was again driven by fleet investment, up 29.6% as the sector continues to recover following the constrained supply of previous years. Registrations by private buyers fell by 7.7%, with a challenging economic backdrop of low growth, weak consumer confidence and high interest rates. The small business registration segment, meanwhile, declined 8.0%.
Growth was driven entirely by fleet investment as the previous year’s supply constraints faded and helped fulfil pent-up demand. Fleet deliveries rebounded by 38.7% year on year, while business registrations, a small proportion of the market, fell by 1.5%. Private consumer demand remained stable at 817,673 units after a strong recovery in 2022, with cost of living pressures and high interest rates constraining growth.
Large fleets rose 40.8% to 143,256 units to reach a market share of 52.5%. This represents a market rebalancing after constrained supply in 2022 restricted deliveries to business and fleet customers. Private consumer demand, meanwhile, also grew, up 5.8% to 122,944 units. As a result, the industry enjoyed its best September since 2020, although registrations remain -20.6% below pre-pandemic levels.
Industry body said that given that recharging an EV at home can offer a 60-70% cost per mile saving compared with refueling a petrol or diesel vehicle, it would like to see a cut in VAT on public charging to help quicken uptake.
Registrations rose across all sales types, with deliveries to private buyers up by 1.4%, and those to businesses with fleets of fewer than 25 vehicles up 26.0%. Large fleets, however, were the predominant drivers of March’s growth, with registrations rising by 40,651 units, a 40.9% increase to take an overall 48.6% market share.
Industry would have welcomed bigger cuts as the automotive industry has faced extremely challenging conditions during the past 12 months with the well-documented supply issues affecting new car production. It wanted a more significant cut in duty following the example of the Irish government, which confirmed last week that excise duty on fuel in Ireland would be reduced by 20 cents per litre on petrol and 15 cents per litre on diesel, the cost of a 60-litre tank of petrol would have been cut by £10 and diesel by £7.50.
Latest figures from the SMMT show that there were 135,377 units registered during the month and as the market recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic, there is still a lot of support needed for the sector said Sue Robinson, Director of the National Franchised Dealers Association (NFDA).
61% of people say they are aware of the Government’s target for all new cars and vans to be zero-emission by 2040 – and it means more than 17 million drivers need convincing before they’ll start considering electric.
Without guidance on how WLTP will affect company car tax rates, there is a risk of contract holders will decide not to renew, and more people may opt out of company car schemes in favour of a less-regulated grey fleet environment.
