- Ford market share drops below 30% in May
- Toyota drops by over 37%
- Volkswagen, Renault and Kia have a strong month
- Van electrification still looks well short of the ZEV Mandate
FORD’S deliberate move to minimise its exposure to the risks of ZEV Mandate fines mean the brand registrations are continuing to drop (see below, Ford claims LCV drop is controlled).
In May Ford was down just more than 1,000 units compared with the same month last year. However, that drop coupled to a stronger performance for the rest of the market meant its market share fell below 30% (29.3%), down nearly six percentage points on May 2025. And year-to-date Ford is only just above 30% market share, down from 36% a year ago.
As revealed by Broker News last month, Ford is now on record saying it was restricting internal combustion engine sales in some lower margin sectors such as daily rental.
Toyota joins Ford on the loser’s rostrum
With Ford being down nearly 8,000 LCVs year-to-date, Toyota’s drop of ‘just’ more than 3,000 vans seems almost trivial, however, in percentage terms it’s much greater.
Toyota is running 37.4% down year to date and in May it was down more than 60%. Indeed for the month, Toyota was the fastest faller (-1,130 LCVs), pushing Ford (-1,080) into second worst.
Third fastest faller for the year Isuzu is still suffering from the change in BIK taxation on pick-ups, and like Toyota, that impact is continuing with the brand being down nearly 80%. However, it is due new product in the coming months, including an electric D-Max, which should help its fortunes.
At the other end of the success chart, Volkswagen, Renault and new-to-vans Kia have all had a strong first five months of 2026.
Source: SMMT
Top 5 fastest growing brands by volume YTD
Bottom 5 fastest falling brands by volume YTD
1 Volkswagen 3,001
2 Renault 2,234
3 Kia 2,141
4 Mercedes 1,354
5 Land Rover 1,183
5 Iveco -691
4 Citroen -1022
3 Isuzu -1275
2 Toyota -3173
1 Ford -7928
Electrification shortfall
With 24% the ZEV Mandate target for electric LCVs, the current state of the van market is far further adrift of where it needs to be to avoid fines than in cars.
Year-to-date, BEV van registrations are up 15.9%, helped by a May that was up 35.5%, but the mix is still just 9.5%, woefully short of the 24% target.
The review of the Mandate, and hopefully an adjustment, cannot come quick enough for OEMs facing significant fines for missing the goal.
The official figures from the SMMT don’t go into detail about how the mix of plug-in hybrid commercial vehicle registrations are performing, unlike the more detailed data on cars. Instead the SMMT wraps up anything that isn’t diesel or BEV into the classification ‘other’ for LCVs. A spokesman for the SMMT told Broker News this was because the numbers were so small it risked identifying individual models through this data.
Main image created by Gemini AI.
Read our new van market analysis of April 2026 registrations
Ford claims LCV drop is controlled
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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.
