(Sorry for this being very late, I’ve been in Australia for family reasons over the last three weeks.)
It was a slow month for new car sales in August, with private sales flat and fleet registrations down. However, EV market share continued to grow.
According to data published by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), overall new car registrations were down by 2% in August compared to the same month last year. Private sales were up by about 1% but fleet registrations were down 5%.
It’s important to bear in mind that August is one of the smallest months of the year for new car sales (along with February), so relatively small changes can mean large swings in percentage terms. Just under 83,000 new cars were registered in August, whereas September will probably see more than 270,000 cars registered thanks to the new 75-plate registration change.
EV and hybrid numbers continue to climb
August was the first full month of the UK government’s new electric car grant scheme, after its botched rollout in July. This meant that there were a few new EV sales that benefitted from the grant in August, plus quite a lot of EV sales that benefitted from manufacturers’ own ‘grant’ offers.
Plug-in hybrid registrations continued their astonishing growth in 2025, even outperforming regular (non-plugged) hybrids. A particular mention goes to new Chinese brand Jaecoo, whose Jaecoo 7 was the UK’s best-selling plug-in hybrid in August. But again, August is a small month so results can be manipulated to some degree. September will give us a much better idea of how the market is really performing.
The other interesting part of the registration data was that petrol and diesel cars made up 50.3% of sales, while hybrids and EVs made up 49.7%. It’s entirely likely that we will achieve the next milestone of electrification, with electrified cars outselling fossil-fuel cars, at some point before the end of this year.
Good month, bad month
Although we repeatedly caution against reading too much into February and August results, we’re still interested in significant increases or decreases for different car brands. And as usual, there were plenty of good and bad results in the UK car market last month. The overall market was down by 2% compared to last August, and we look for brands that are at least 10% better or worse than the overall figure.
It was a good month for the following brands, which all outperformed the overall market by at least 10%: Alfa Romeo, Alpine, Bentley, BMW, BYD, Cupra, GWM, Hyundai, Land Rover, Mini, Omoda, Peugeot and Polestar.
Meanwhile, things were slow for these brands, which all underachieved against the overall market by at least 10%: Abarth, Audi, Citroën, DS Automobiles, Fiat, Genesis, Honda, Ineos, KGM, Kia, Maserati, Mazda, MG, Nissan, SEAT, Smart, Subaru, Suzuki, Toyota, Vauxhall and Volvo.
That means the following brands were about where you’d expect them to be: Dacia, Ford, Jeep, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Renault, Skoda, Tesla and Volkswagen.
As usual, Volkswagen was the UK’s best-selling brand in August, followed by Ford, BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz.
In terms of absolute growth, Jaecoo registered 1,367 cars in August, despite being a new name that did not exist in the UK 12 months ago. Mini was close behind, increasing sales over last August by 1,364 units. Going the other way, Audi recorded the largest fall in registrations compared to last year, dropping nearly 1,400 units. SEAT also lost out big time, dropping nearly 1,200 sales on the same month last year.
Puma extends its lead in August
The UK’s best-selling car continues to be the Ford Puma, which again sat atop the sales charts in August. In second place was once again its nearest challenger from the last couple of years, the Kia Sportage. With four months left to run, the Puma has edged out a lead of nearly 4,000 units over the Sportage in the overall 2025 sales race.
Kia had a very strong second half of the year in 2024, right up until December when Sportage sales seemed to come to a screeching halt, allowing the Puma to snatch the overall 2024 sales crown. What will the last four months of this year bring? Well, the Sportage has been freshly facelifted with first cars arriving in September, while the Puma will get a boost from its electric Puma Gen-E model being the only car in its class to get the full £3,750 government grant, meaning it’s very competitively priced. Keep following this battle all the way to the end of the year.
In other news, Tesla had both its cars in the top five, defying suggestions that the company’s sales would collapse over anti-Elon sentiment. The Jaecoo 7 also made a surprising debut appearance in the top ten, popping up in sixth place.
We’ll have our usual analysis of the top ten shortly.
