WITH a 10% market share target for electric LCVs in 2024 and the first quarter new van registrations now in, it looks like numbers will fall short.
The Government’s ZEV Mandate dictates that 10% of each brand’s LCV registrations must be BEVs or face hefty fines. However registrations for the first three months of 2024 see the mix sitting at 5.2% barely up from 5.1% a year ago.
March as a single month saw electric vans take 5.5% of the market, again up a fraction from March 2023’s 5.3%.
Source: SMMT
The SMMT described the 10% target as an “increasingly ambitious proportion” and called for increased van-suitable charging infrastructure to help reassure businesses that using an electric LCV is possible.
Industry sources who spoke to Broker News during March said that some OEMs were unsuccessfully trying heavy-handed tactics to push EVs on fleet customers such as insisting on a certain percentage EV uptake in order to get a particular discount.
The total LCV market was up 11.1% in March, helping the first quarter to a total of 94,812 units and 8.6% up on Q1 2023.
Brand performance - March 2024 van sales
Market leader Ford had a particularly strong March with a hike of more than 2,400 units over its 2023 figure and taking a market share of 34.3%. However, March’s strong performance was not enough to help the year-to-date share which stands at 31.5% against 32.6% a year ago.
Toyota, VW and Maxus are all doing well this year with 1,000-plus increases in unit sales.
At the other end of the spectrum, and despite a positive March, Renault is down by nearly 500 units for Q1 2024.
Top three growth brands (unit increase, Q1)
Bottom three brands (unit decrease, Q1)
1 Ford +1,443
2 Toyota +1,412
3 Volkswagen +1,078
3 Isuzu -335
2 Man -362
1 Renault -482
Read our analysis of February’s 2024’s LCV registration figures
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Tristan Young is an award winning journalist with more than 25 years’ experience reporting on the automotive industry focussing predominantly on fleet and retail. As a self-confessed petrol-head, Tristan has a weakness for car classifieds. When he’s not writing about the automotive industry, he can usually be found outdoors with a small pack of border collies.
