John Wilmot | Source | CEO at LeaseLoco

Although a 10th consecutive month of growth in new car registrations is encouraging, we shouldn’t forget that new car sales slumped in 2022, so we are comparing 2023 registrations with very low sales levels.

Also, EV registrations are not spectacular and are struggling to increase market share – 16.9% seems reasonable on the surface, but in December market share was just under 33%.

Less than a fifth of all registrations are BEVs for the fourth consecutive month, which is simply not high enough when you consider that the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles in the UK is less than seven years away. The Government should be concerned that more people aren’t switching to electric, but there doesn’t appear to be a clear plan and consumers have few incentives to buy EVs.

Many EVs are still too expensive, despite manufacturers cutting prices. Higher energy costs and substantially lower petrol and diesel prices since last summer means people aren’t as motivated to switch to reduce their running costs.

And there are frequent stories of people having to queue for hours to charge their cars. Anxiety over charging is not the kind of publicity that is going to convince car owners, who are perhaps sitting on the fence right now, to make the switch.

It’s not quite time to press the panic button just yet, but we’re getting closer to that point.