New car sales for January hit just over 25,000 units, just 47 short of the same figure last year and no doubt supply issues contributed to this slight fall. Sales of vans were slightly up and sales of HGVs were down by about 1.5%.
Used car imports were also down over the same period last year, showing a fall of over 40%.
EV sales had their strongest month ever, with 2,714 cars registered, a 178% increase over January 2021. Electric cars are now very much a mainstream choice.
Sales of electrified cars, that is hybrid and plug in hybrid were also on the rise and now account for 46% of the overall market. In a telling statistic, petrol has now overtaken diesel in the sales charts with 28.6% of buyers choosing petrol power over 22.4% which is the diesel share.
For the first time too, automatic transmissions have overtaken manuals in popularity with 57.1% opting for automatic. Presumably that figure includes EVs which don’t have a gearbox but are classed as automatic. It’s a sign of the times that many new ICE cars are no longer available with a manual transmission. It’s sad to think that we’re seeing the beginning of the end of the manual gearbox.
Car sales are still 22% behind pre-pandemic levels and a lot of that is down to supply issues as there’s an expectation that things will pick up once supplies are more plentiful. Most companies are reporting strong order books and there should be a more even spread of sales across 2022.
Hyundai in particular had a very successful January, with their new Ioniq 5 going straight to the top of the EV charts with a total of 459 registered. The Ioniq was followed by the Nissan Leaf, Kia EV6, Volkswagen ID. 4 and Kia Niro to complete the top ten.
Hyundai’s Tucson was also the best selling car overall, beating the Toyota Corolla to the coveted number one spot.
Top five brands
1. Toyota
2. Hyundai
3. Volkswagen
4. Skoda
5. Kia
Top five best sellers
1. Hyundai Tucson
2. Toyota Corolla
3.Toyota RAV 4
4.Toyota C-HR
5.Toyota Yaris
ends 360
