Sales to motorists unconvinced by the prospect of going electric grew by 12%
NICK GIBBS
A stumble in the demand for electric cars in the UK could be benefiting diesel cars, at least in the short term.
In December 2023, EV sales fell 34% year on year as makers struggled to convince the wider public to make the switch. Meanwhile, diesel car sales actually rose 12%, interrupting a decline that began in 2016.
“When BEV does badly, combustion engines do better, but diesel does a little better than petrol,” said Al Bedwell, head of powertrain analysis at market researcher GlobalData.
The situation is even more pronounced in Germany. Last year, diesel car sales there rose 11% across the full year, giving this fuel type a 24% share, according to GlobalData.
Customers of larger and more expensive cars are still attracted to the properties of diesel, which has increasingly swung to premium brands as overall demand falls away.
Premium brands now account for 40% of all diesel sales in Europe, up from 30% in 2015, GlobalData figures show.
Bedwell told Autocar of a recent executive meeting at an unnamed company in which everyone in the room drove a diesel. “For high-speed long-distance driving, diesel still has no equal, and cars doing that type of driving tend to be premium, especially in Germany,” he said.
In the UK, diesel has nowhere near the market share it does in Germany, at just 7.5% last year.
JLR is by far the biggest seller of diesels here. In fact, sales of Land Rover diesels doubled year on year in January to more than 2700, led by the Defender.
Such was the demand for JLR diesels that sales were triple those of the next biggest diesel seller, Mercedes-Benz. BMW was third.
JLR is an outlier, however, as the January figures show. Premium brands may now dominate diesel sales, but BMW recently announced that it wasn’t bringing the 520d version of its new 5 Series to the UK, a development that underlines just how far diesel has fallen since its heyday.
Back in 2008, 5 Series sales were 93% D-badged as the UK headed towards its diesel pinnacle in 2011, when diesels claimed 50% of the market.
The ratio in 2008 was the same for any large car launched by a premium brand. For example, the BMW X5 was 95% diesel and the Volvo XC90 was almost identical. Land Rovers were 98% diesel.
Fast forward through the Dieselgate scandal in 2015 and a very different picture emerges
