- Ford down further on a market that’s up
- Vauxhall’s August worse than Ford’s
- EV registrations surge to nearly 23%
- Fleet still the powerhouse of new car registrations
FORD’S woes continued in August as the brand fell even further against an overall market that was only fractionally down on the same month last year.
Ford dropped 28.8% in August while the total market was down just 1.2%. For the year to date, Ford is down 23.3% while the overall market for new cars is up 5.1%. In unit terms, Ford is now down more than 21,000 cars over the first eight months. By comparison, the next worst figure is a drop of 8,464 by Vauxhall. However, Vauxhall did have a fractionally worse August than Ford; 2,297 units down for Vauxhall and 2,146 down for Ford.
As each month of 2024 passes with a fall in units for the Blue Oval, it makes the promise that Ford would “correct themselves over the rest of the year”, made in June, even more difficult. The US firm now only has four months to recover its losses.
Five years ago, in 2019, before the pandemic, Ford was not only the market leader, but in the first eight months of the year had registered more than 188,000 cars. So far in 2024 it has registered just shy of 70,000 cars and is in fifth place in the total market.
Most of Ford’s drop has been down to a deterioration in fleet registrations, however, its retail sales are also running lower than last year, according to data from Auto Retail Bulletin.
“We have just started Explorer deliveries in the late days of August and the volume of new Puma and Kuga is now entering the market. We are also due to start Capri deliveries in Q4. We are expecting that our second half sales performance will reflect the new launches in the same time period. It’s an obvious reminder but Puma is the number one best-selling car in the UK.”
Overall trend in new car market for August 2024
Source: SMMT
August is always one of the smallest months of the year as new car buyers hold off for the September plate change. September is typically more than three times larger than August. This smaller market can exaggerate changes. The EV market is a prime example of this.
In August EVs accounted for nearly 23% of the market, up from 20% last year. However, this only meant an extra 2,000 EVs were sold. The year-to-date market mix for EVs is currently at 17.2%, a slight improvement on the 16.4% figure from a year ago.
August’s total market was down 1.3% against a year-to-date stat up 5.1%.
Fleet registrations continue to power the new car market with fleet up 19.2% so far this year, while retail sales are down 11.2%.
Looking ahead to Q4
With September registrations already underway, several industry commentators and Broker News sources within the retail market have said that the run to the end of the year will be highly challenging.
Philip Nothard, Insight Director at Cox Automotive, warned that the ZEV Mandate would have serious repercussions as the year went on:
“The ZEV Mandate may be grounded in good intention, but it is putting the new vehicle sector under impossible and unreasonable pressure. The tactics we are likely to see deployed by OEMs and retailers to hit their numbers in the closing months of this year will be drastic, expensive and risky, creating an unrealistic and unnatural market with potentially far-reaching consequences over the long term. We urge the Government to listen to the sector’s feedback, review the mandate and implement support packages to fast-track EV adoption.
“August played out as we expected; it is traditionally a low-volume month. We stand by our forecast of 2.02m registrations for the full year. Still, we are in no doubt that September – the second most critical month of the year for registrations – and Q4 will be an extremely challenging period for the sector.”
One retail group boss Broker News spoke to added the level of difficulty was linked heavily to the brand. Those brands offering new attractive, and well priced, product were performing well, but others would be “very challenging for the rest of the year”.
Winners and losers in the August 2024 market
Aside from Ford’s standout poor performance in 2024, several other brands are suffering this year.
The arrival of far more choice in the electric vehicle market has seen Tesla come under pressure and the US brand is currently the fifth fastest faller in 2024 with a drop of nearly 5,000 units over the first eight months of 2023.
Similarly, all-EV brand Polestar is also having a poor 2024 and is down more than 5,000 units this year. The trend has led to the Geely and Volvo owned company backtracking on its direct sales approach in the UK. Polestar is now utilising a non-genuine agency approach which will give retailers more flexibility when selling the cars. However, the firm has stopped short of moving to a full franchise arrangement.
Within the Stellantis group there are mixed fortunes. Peugeot is the shining star with registrations up nearly 5,500 for the year. Jeep too is performing well an increase of nearly 3,000 units so far this year. However, as we’ve already noted, Vauxhall is down nearly 8,500 cars. But on top of this, Fiat is down more than 1,500 units and DS down nearly 1,000.
As has been the case for the majority of 2024, BMW, which is still committed to switching to the agency model in the next couple of years, continues to produce impressive numbers. Year-to-date, BMW is up more than 28% or more than 18,500 units.
The Renault Nissan alliance is also performing strongly with the two main brands occupying second and third place in the fastest growing chart. Dacia too is showing good results and is up 9% this year. Even the Alpine sports car brand is rolling along nicely in percentage terms, up 21% this year. However, in outright numbers Alpine is tiny and has sold fewer cars this year than the now defunct Fisker.
Top 5 brands by unit increase YTD
Bottom 5 brands by unit decrease YTD
1 BMW +18,585
2 Renault +13,018
3 Nissan +12,015
4 Mercedes +11,363
5 Volvo +9,243
5 Tesla -4,798
4 Polestar -5,050
3 Toyota -6,019
2 Vauxhall -8,464
1 Ford -21,273
Read our new car market analysis of July 2024 registrations
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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.
