The gap between sales of battery-electric vehicles in the U.K. and government-mandated targets widened further in 2025, according to full-year data released Jan. 6 by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.
The nation’s auto industry representative noted that while total vehicle sales in the country broke the 2 million mark for the first time since the pandemic — reaching 2,020,520 new-car registrations in 2025 — BEV reached just 23.4% of total market share with 473,348 new BEV registrations.
That’s 4.6 percentage points below the U.K government’s mandate requiring the industry to reach 28% BEV market share by 2026.
The SMMT noted the results reveal the gap between industry mandates and results are widening when it comes to BEV sales. By comparison, in 2024, BEV market share was 19.6% versus a mandated target of 22%.
The trade group acknowledged that automakers have hugely increased their investment in the sector, providing a choice of more than 160 BEV models with at least 60 more expected in 2026.
Yet, BEV uptake has risen by only 23.9% year-on-year. The organization is blaming a slow roll-out of government grants to help consumers make the switch to BEVs, with only about a quarter of models currently eligible for the incentive at any level.
Instead, carmakers were forced to subsidize their BEV sales by more than £5 billion in 2025, the SMMT claimed.
That’s equivalent to £11,000 per BEV registered, according to SMMT’s analysis of AutoTrader data on BEV discounts, the trade group’s estimated fleet discounts and BEV car market data, plus Jato Dynamics’ sales-weighted recommended retail price data.
The organization says this level of automaker support is unsustainable.
“Rising EV uptake is an undoubted positive but the pace is still too slow and the cost to industry too high,” said SMMT’s chief executive Mike Hawes. “Government has stepped in with the Electric Car Grant but a new EV tax, additional charges for EV drivers in London and costly public charging send mixed signals.”
Another point of interest for new gasoline-vehicle registrations is that while the whole-year data shows an 8% drop in sales to 46.4% of market share, the figures for December revealed only a 3.1% decline.
This suggests EY’s research that U.K. consumers’ return to traditional internal-combustion vehicles is affecting vehicle choice, with an estimated 41% saying the next car they purchase will be gasoline-powered.
That said, for the whole year hybrid vehicle volumes rose 7.2% to achieve a 13.9% market share, while plug-in hybrids were the fastest-growing powertrain, with volumes increasing 34.7% to take 11.1% of registrations.
