The UK’s new car market returned to growth in June after a slow couple of months, with the overall results slightly ahead of last year as we reach the halfway point of 2025.
According to data published today by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), new car registrations were up by 7% in June compared to the same month last year, with fleet registrations up by 9% and private new car sales up by 6%. Just over 190,000 new cars were registered for the month.
So as we reach the halfway point of the year, 2025 registrations are about 4% ahead of the same point last year, with private sales 5% up and fleet registrations up by 3%.
While this is good news for the industry, it’s worth keeping in mind that this is still about 20% or so below the numbers we used to see before the Covid-19 pandemic, and it doesn’t look like the market will recover to those levels anytime in the foreseeable future.
EVs lead the charge
Unsurprisingly, electric cars and plug-in hybrids continued to lead the way in June. New EV registrations were up 39% on the same month last year, while plug-in hybrids were up by 29% and not far off the numbers recorded for regular (non-plugged) hybrids, which were down by 9%. Petrol cars registrations were down by 4% while diesels were almost unchanged – which is effectively going backwards since the market was up by 7%.
One in four new cars (25%) registered in June was an EV, with year-to-date numbers tracking ever closer to the government’s Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate figure for 2025. Officially, this says that 28% of all new cars must be EVs, but in reality there are allowances in the system that will bring that figure down to about 23%.
With June’s numbers running ahead of that figure, and year-to-date market share sitting at just under 22%, the industry seems better placed to meet the 28% mandate requirement this year than it was tracking to meet last year’s 22% target at the same point of the year. However, we still expect some manufacturers to be behind their targets in coming months so there are still likely to be strong deals around on new EVs from some car brands.
Plug-in hybrids continue to enjoy a 2025 resurgence, which is also linked to the ZEV mandate. This further eases pressure on some manufacturers to sell more EVs, as plug-in hybrids effectively count as partial credits. Regular hybrid sales were down quite notably, which was something of a surprise, while declining petrol car sales was less of a surprise and has become the norm as customers gradually switch to electrified vehicles.
Good month, bad month
Although the overall market was up by 7% in June, that growth wasn’t shared equally across all brands and some were a long way ahead or behind.
It was a good month for Alpine, BYD, Citroën, Cupra, DS Automobiles, Ford, KGM, Lexus, Mazda, Peugeot, Polestar and Skoda. All of these brands outperformed the overall market by at least 10% (ie – grew by at least 17% over the same month last year).
Meanwhile, things were not as rosy for Abarth, Audi, BMW, Fiat, Genesis, GWM, Honda, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz, MG, Mini, SEAT, Smart, Suzuki, Toyota and Volvo. All of these brands underachieved against the overall market by at least 10% (ie – sales fell by at least 3%)
That means that the following brands were about where you’d expect, less than 10% above or below the overall market growth: Alfa Romeo, Bentley, Dacia, Hyundai, Ineos, Jeep, Kia, Land Rover, Nissan, Porsche, Renault, Subaru, Tesla, Vauxhall and Volkswagen.
What the lists above don’t show is the performance of the new brands that have entered the UK market within the last 12 months. Omoda and Jaecoo (two sister brands but effectively operating as one company) have had a very strong start to the year. Combined, they outsold brands like Mazda and Mini despite having only a couple of models between them. Leapmotor (a Chinese brand within the enormous Stellantis family) continued its slow start to UK sales, just ahead of Xpeng, while Skywell only managed to put number plates on two cars in the entire month.
As usual, Volkswagen ruled the roost in terms of total registrations, ahead of BMW, Ford, Hyundai and Kia. BYD recorded the largest growth, increasing registrations by nearly 3,900 cars compared to the same month last year. Going in the other direction, Toyota recorded the biggest fall with a drop of more than 2,600 cars over last June’s numbers.
We’ll have a more detailed 2025 half-time report coming in the next few days, analysing each brand’s performance over the first six months of the year and discussing what to expect in the next six months.
Qashqai takes top spot
The UK-made Nissan Qashqai was the UK’s best-selling new car in June, comfortably eclipsing the Ford Puma, which increased its lead in the overall 2025 sales race to more than 3,000 units over the Kia Sportage.
Tesla bounced back into the best-sellers list in June, with both of its UK models performing well. The Model Y crossover was the third-best-selling car, while the Model 3 saloon was sixth. Although people will inevitably connect improved Tesla sales with its CEO Elon Musk leaving his unpopular US government role, in reality these results are well within Tesla’s usual sales fluctuations and there’s probably not much more to read into things at this stage.
The Nissan Juke squeezed into the bottom end of the table in ninth place, giving us two UK-built cars in the top ten this month.
We’ll have our usual top ten report out later today.
