- Jaecoo 7 beats Puma to number 1 spot
- Chinese brands take over a quarter of September’s new car market
- ZEV Mandate target looks on course to be met
- Nissan’s woeful year continues
MORE than a quarter (27.5%) of the September new car market went to Chinese-owned brands. And for the year-to-date that figure is over 21%. So far this year, these brands have added 372,287 cars to the market, that’s 169,485 more than they did in the first nine months of 2025.
With the first 76-plate month now completed, significance is marked. Year-to-date, the new car market is up more than 10% and that figure equates to just over 161,000 cars; obviously a figure smaller than the growth of the Chinese brands.
The best-selling model in September was the Jaecoo 7 and year-to-date it’s running second in the charts behind the Ford Puma. However, the Jaecoo 7 is currently only 3,453 units behind the Puma and the question has to be asked; will the Jaecoo take top spot by the end of the year. It’s worth keeping in mind that in September alone, the 7 sold almost 4,000 more than the Puma.
From a single brand perspective, BYD, with just more than 20,000 cars registered in September, was the second largest volume OEM. That was behind Volkswagen (25,972) but beating brands that include Kia, MG, Audi and Tesla.
Individual Chinese brands are part of larger OEM groups. Chery group, which operates Omoda, Jaecoo, Chery and now Lepas, now has a year-to-date market share of 7.2% and is the fifth largest manufacturer in the market after VW Group (20.6%), Stellantis (10.7%), Hyundai-Kia (9.2%) and BMW Group (7.7%).
A market that’s up by 10%
Year-to-date the total market is running up 10.2%, helped by September’s 12.1% hike. The monthly total of 350,518 cars was the highest for nine years and takes the market back to pre-pandemic levels.
Fleet registrations were up 9.6% with retail up 13.9%. However, Broker News sources said the fleet market was flat, in comparison to the same time last year, until the final three days of the month. The source also revealed that approximately one third of all September’s registrations happened in the last three days.
So far this year, fleet and business registrations account for 57.5% of the 1.74 million new cars registered.
Electrification remains on the rise
Over the first nine months of 2026 the battery electric share of the market now stands at just more than 26%, up from 22% a year ago, representing a 30% rise in registrations.
At this level, with allowances for lower CO2 vehicles, it looks likely this year’s 33% ZEV Mandate target will be met by most manufacturers.
Plug-in hybrid share is still rising, with 14.1% of new car buyers choosing a PHEV this year. This, despite the fact cars acquired now and run for at least three years, will drop into the main BIK tax bands based on CO2 with only BEVs retaining a significant advantage beyond April 2028.
Citroen, Tesla and MINI lead the old order charge
With Chinese brands already covered, established OEMs had mixed fortunes in September.
Of the top 10 best performing brands by volume, Citroen, Tesla and MINI took eighth, ninth and 10th place in the best performer’s ranking after MG and Leapmotor took sixth and seventh respectively.
MINI – working under agency rules – is keeping the BMW Group in positive territory with a gain of 8,658 cars while BMW has dropped nearly 5,000 units year-to-date and is in sixth place in the fastest fallers chart.
It’s a similar story within Stellantis. The group is up 13,203 cars this year, helped by Citroen’s 11,570 increase, Leapmotor’s additional 11,748 volume and Vauxhall’s 4,075 jump. However, that circa 27,000 improvement is brought back down by Peugeot’s 11,371 drop and Fiat’s decrease of 2,197. It’s also worth noting DS is also down 740 units and is Stellantis’s smallest brand with just 242 cars registered this year.
Within the VW Group (including Porsche), SEAT and Volkswagen let the side down, but again with all five brands in the mix the total is up more than 3,500 cars this year.
Nissan continues to have a poor year and is back at the bottom of the worst performer’s list taking the place back from Peugeot this month. Nissan retailers have told Broker News the new Leaf is now available to order but volumes have yet to materialise.
Top 5 unit increase YTD
Bottom 5 unit decrease YTD
1 Jaecoo 40,565
2 BYD 32,801
3 Chery 32,059
4 Omoda 17,309
5 Geely 14,400
5 SEAT -5,305
4 Ford -8,536
3 Hyundai -11,139
2 Peugeot -11,371
1 Nissan -11,568
Source: SMMT
What else did we see in September?
The SMMT’s list of brands got slightly bigger this month with two new brands entering the market in September. Chery-owned Lepas with 739 cars and Denza with four cars registered in the month.
Renault had what looked like a shockingly poor month, down nearly 3,000 units on September 2025. A spokesperson for the company said the drop was due to limited supply as the demand for the 4 and 5 across Europe was particularly strong and that the brand would make up the drop in Q4.
Tesla, which has a habit of putting in punchy registrations at the end of each quarter did exactly that in September. Interestingly a Broker News source said that the majority of these registrations came in the last three days of the month and the Model 3 “came from nowhere” to be second best seller in September. The Model Y also took fifth place for the month.
More than half of all Nissans sold this year are Qashqais.
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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.
