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EVs now make up nearly a third of new cars in big jump year-on-year – do you have an EV?

ended 04. September 2026

UK car sales have logged their strongest August since 2018, SMMT figures show.

Registrations of new cars in the UK rose about 13% to more than 90,000 in August, preliminary industry data showed on Friday.

That is the highest number for an August in eight years.

The latest data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders also shows that the market share of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) rose to about 30% in August – nearly a third.

BEVs have shown a 27.7% year-on-year growth – it now has a 29.8% market share in 2026 versus 26.5% in 2025.

When you add BEVs and HEVs (hybrid EVs), that's 42.6% – higher than petrol market share at 38.3%

  • Do you have an EV?
  • Why have you chosen one over a petrol/diesel car?
  • What benefits do EVs offer over petrol/diesel?

Responses asap.

2 responses from the Newspage community

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Kate Underwood
Founder & Chief People Strategist at Kate Underwood HR and Training
Do I have an EV? No. But I look after HR for loads of small businesses, and I'm the one setting these schemes up, so I know why the numbers jumped.
Salary sacrifice EVs have gone mad. People ask for it by name in interviews now, which never used to happen. It's gone from a perk nobody understood to one of the few benefits people actually want.
The EV boom isn't happening on forecourts. It's happening through payroll.
It's the tax that does it. Company car tax on an electric car is tiny next to up to 37% on a petrol one. Your staff member gives up a bit of salary, pays less tax and National Insurance, and ends up in a car they couldn't otherwise afford. The business saves National Insurance too, which is the only good news a small employer has had all year.
And it's not just big firms. There are companies that set this up for a business with five staff, no fleet, no HR department.
Read the small print on maternity and leavers. That's where it catches people out.
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Richard Michie
CEO and Founder at The Marketing Optimist
I switched to EV three years ago. At first I was worried about range and changing points, not as worried as my partner though, who was convinced we’d run out of battery constantly. Driving it made everything much clearer. We learning to plan our journeys with a stop to recharge, grab a loo break and some food. Once you do this you find that charging points are everywhere. So we’ve happily driven from Leeds to Brighton and right around rural Wales with no worries at all. We had a charging points installed at home too so were saving loads on fuel costs and dodging petrol price volatility totally. There’s no way I’d go back to a petrol car now.