The overall British new car market fell to a seven year low in 2019 of 2.3 million units, with registrations down by 2.4 per cent over the previous year, with 2018 itself witnessing a near-seven per cent decline over 2017.
With huge uncertainty about the future of diesels engines in the UK (and across the world), sales of new derv-engined passenger cars slowed by a whopping 22 per cent to account for around a quarter of all British new cars sold. Conversely, registrations of more eco-friendly hybrids and fully-electric new cars rose by a healthy 17 per cent (with electrics up by an electrifying 144 per cent) to take a 7.4 per cent slice of the British new car market (EVs being 1.6 per cent of the 2019 UK total).
With the contentious proposed daytime banning of all diesel-engined vehicles into the centre of Bristol by March 2021 (ironic, given that Bristol City Council has recently purchased a fleet of brand new diesel-powered vehicles!), plus the possible prohibition of all internal combustion engined cars into York city centre by 2023, the future use of diesels looks increasingly perilous in the UK, even though modern diesels are the cleanest ever.
The sharp drop in diesel sales saw the average CO2 rating of a new UK market car rise to an average of c.128g/km, a near 3 per cent increase, which is discouraging, and heading in the wrong direction from the EU average vehicle target of 95g/km.
Although Fiesta-style superminis and Focus-style family cars still made-up more than half of Britain’s new car sales, these markets sectors declined overall last year, as did the registrations of Panda-type city cars, Mondeo-sized ‘mainstream’ family cars, plus MPVs, sports cars and coupes. Some premium sector saloons, plus crossovers and off-roaders, all enjoyed some sales growth over the previous year in the on-going onslaught of high-rise SUVs.