UK March 2025: BEVs (+43.2%), VW (+42.5%) and Ford (+38.8%) lift market up 12.4%

The Ford Puma is back to #1 in the UK.

In the most important month of the year (new ’25 license plate released), UK sales grow by a splendid 12.4% year-on-year to 357,103 units, single handedly tiling the Q1 2025 tally into positive at +6.4% to 580,502. This is the largest March volume since pre-pandemic 2019 (458,054), according to SMMT. Private sales advance faster than the market at +14.5% to 147,041 and 41.2% share vs. 40.4% a year ago while fleet sales are up 11.5% to 202,171 and 56.6% share vs. 57.1%. Business sales are stable at -0.3% to 7,891 and 2.2% share vs. 2.5%. Year-to-date, private sales are up 9.5% to 227,122 and 39.1% share vs. 38% over Q1 2024 just as fleet sales edge up 4.6% to 341,561 and 58.8% share vs. 59.8% last year and business sales are up 0.6% to 11,819 and 2% vs. 2.2%.

BEV sales spectacularly surge 43.2% year-on-year this month to 69,313 units, the largest ever EV monthly volume in UK history. EV share is 19.4% for the month vs. 15.2% in March 2024. Meanwhile PHEV is up 37.9% to 33,815 and 9.5% share vs. 7.7% a year ago and HEVs are up 27.7% to 56,161 and 15.7% share vs. 13.8%. This means all electrified fuels advance faster than an already galloping market. In contrast petrol edges down -0.4% to 176,847 and 49.5% share vs. 55.9% and diesel drops -10.1% to 20,967 and 5.9% vs. 7.3% last year. Year-to-date, BEVs are up 42.6% to 120,191 and 20.7% share vs. 15.5% over Q1 2024, PHEVs soar 26.1% to 53,686 and 9.2% share vs. 7.8% and HEVs are up 18.7% to 86,005 and 14.8% share vs. 13.3%. Petrol is down -7.1% to 286,787 and 49.4% share vs. 56.6% and diesel is down -10.2% to 33,833 and 5.8% share vs. 6.9%.

Source: SMMT

In the brands ranking, Volkswagen surges 42.5% year-on-year to 8.8% share and Ford soars a rare 38.8% to 6.6% of the market. These two brands are responsible for most of the market gains this month, as the next seven carmakers in the charts all trail the overall growth rate. Toyota (+9.7%), Kia (+8.2%), BMW (+7.5%) and Vauxhall (+5.4%) keep their lift rate to the single digits while Nissan (-18.4%), Mercedes (-10.8%) and Audi (-5.1%) vastly underperform. Below, notice Volvo (+58.1%), Skoda (+36.3%), Peugeot (+35.4%) and Renault (+26.1%) all impressive. Tesla (+2.4%) is in positive but drops to 2% share vs. 4.6% last month. Further down the charts, BYD (+753.8%) breaks into the Top 20 for the first time at #19.

Model-wise, the Ford Puma (+33.8%) sports its first monthly win since last August. Given the weight of March in the YTD figures, this is enough to propel the nameplate to the #1 Q1 spot. It ranked #9 after two months this year. The Kia Sportage (+5.8%) takes the 2nd spot both for the month and year-to-date. The Vauxhall Corsa (+15.1%) has a rare standout month at #3 and now ranks #4 so far this year vs. #12 over the Full Year 2024. The Nissan Qashqai (-23.4%) is in freefall over a particularly good year-ago performance when it was #1 overall. The Nissan Juke (-11.9%) is also in a bad way. Below the VW Golf (+14.5%), MG places the HS (+16.1%) at #7 and the ZS at #9. The Ford Kuga leaps to #8, its first Top 10 incursion since last October.

Previous month: UK February 2025: Mini Cooper best-seller

One year ago: UK March 2024: Nissan Qashqai #1, Audi A3 and Mercedes A-Class impress

Full March 2025 Top 50 All brands and Top 10 models below.