While the new car market has slumped for a fourth consecutive month, there is better news for the used car market and Land Rover are celebrating an upsurge.
Sales of new cars are down 4.9 per cent year-on-year according to the latest figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturing, with petrol cars seeing a slight increase in sales and electric vehicles seeing another huge month of growth in June with a jump of 61.7%.
It wasn’t all great news though for the alternatively fueled market, with Plug-in hybrid and hybrids suffering a drop in sales, a slump of 50.4% for PHEVs pushed the sector into negative growth for the first time since April 2017.
But it is good news for used car sales, with the popularity of affordable finance deals helping keep the market steady according to the AA Cars chief executive, James Fairclough.
He said: “The recent popularity of PCP loans has injected a large number of nearly new cars into the second hand market, encouraging some people to buy used instead of new. This shift has been good news for the used car market, which saw sales hold steady in the first quarter of the year, with a modest drop of 0.6%.
“What’s most surprising from today’s data is that the ever so popular alternatively fuelled vehicles have recorded a drop in sales for the first time since April 2017. Despite the fact that the UK has just become the first major economy to set a net zero target on greenhouse gas emissions for 2050, there is ongoing confusion over low emission zones. Also, there is no doubt that the removal of ultra low emission vehicle government grants has impacted the market.”
It wasn’t all bad news for the new car market, Land Rover went against the grain by seeing a 7.8 per cent rise in the sales of their models.