- Most car makers show positive sales figures
- But Mercedes and Fiat are in doldrums
- Volkswagen tops car registrations
- Is salary sacrifice distorting retail figures?
WITH the majority of car makers showing positive figures this year, those with negative figures are beginning to increasingly stand out.
Mercedes, which switched to the agency model at the start of the year, was up 12.6% in August. However this is still lower than the industry average growth for the month of 24.4%. As a result, the German premium brand is tracking around 25 percentage points below the market this year and has seen the biggest unit fall of any brand this year, down 2,885 cars.
Fiat, however, is running Mercedes a close second with a drop of 2,294 cars year-to-date.
After this pair, there’s a large jump to Smart which is down only 693 units for the year, however, the brand is currently in tickover mode while it waits for the arrival of the new #1 which is expected from September.
Strongest performers in August
Best unit growth YTD
1. Volkswagen +27,845
2. MG +19,491
3. Audi +17,996
4. Ford +17,083
5. Nissan +15,664
Volkswagen continues to top the new car registrations, running up 38.1% this year and taking 8.6% market share. VW is also the first brand to cross the 100,000 car mark this year. At the end of August it hit 101,020 cars registered. However, second placed Ford now appears back on form with a 23.1% rise year-to-date and a 7.7% share.
Audi sits in third place this year with 85,285 cars sold, Kia holds fourth with 73,047 cars and Toyota is fifth with 68,139 cars registered.
EVs continue to grow market share
Analysis of the fuel types being registered by SMMT shows that battery electric cars have been growing their share for the past four months and now account for 16.4% of the market. A year ago EVs accounted for 14.0% of the market and ended 2022 on 16.6%.
The EV increase in has come at the expense of diesel share, which is now down to 7.8% of the market.
Petrol sales, including all non plug-in hybrids, remain almost unchanged from a year ago with a 69.0% share in the first eight months of 2023.
Salary sacrifice 'distorts' new car registrations
Salary sacrifice schemes which pull private buyers into the company car space are distorting the true level of retail demand for electric cars, according to David Browne UK managing director of Smart.
August new car registrations were up almost 25% overall with a 72.3% hike in battery electric cars. Fleet and business registrations were up nearly 58% while private sales were down more than 8%. Year-to-date fleet registrations are up 42.6% with private registrations up just 0.9%.
There is increasing evidence salary sacrifice is skewing these figures as private buyers with access to salary sacrifice schemes use these to source their electric cars and take advantage of the hefty tax breaks that come with it.
Recent analysis from BVRLA reported a 41% increase in salary sacrifice cars this year, with 91% of these vehicles being battery electric.
Speaking to Broker News, David Browne, UK managing director of electric car manufacturer Smart, said he believed salary sacrifice arrangements were impacting the true level of private demand for electric vehicles:
There's a lot of retail customers that are now appearing as fleet customers. And what I mean by that is a lot of people who would be retail normally and would show up in that channel, are now taking salary sacrifice.
Read July 2023 new car sales analysis
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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.
