Sales of alternatively fuelled cars over took diesels in 2020

Sales of alternatively fuelled cars overtook diesels for the first time in 2020, Department for Transport data showed.

338,000 new alternatively fuelled cars were registered in Britain in 2020 compared with only 295,000 diesels.

Alternatively fuelled cars — mostly pure electric models and hybrids — saw an 87 per cent year-on-year rise in sales. Purely electric cars accounted for 107,000 sales alone, representing a 184 per cent annual increase.

Meanwhile the sale of diesels dropped by 51 per cent in 2020.

Rod Dennis, spokesman for the RAC, said: “With ever-more electrified models available, it’s looking increasingly likely that sales of diesel cars may now never recover to previous levels, which will help improve the air quality in towns and cities.”

He added: “With more than a quarter of a million cars declared off-road at the end of last year, it remains to be seen just how people’s mobility choices are affected by the pandemic in the longer term and how many of these cars will come back.”

The DfT figures showed that 2.1 million new vehicles were registered for the first time in Britain during 2020, which was 27 per cent down on 2019. By the end of 2020 there were a total of 38.6 million licensed vehicles in Britain, down by 0.3 per cent overall.

Petrol was still the most popular type of new car fuel, with 987,000 vehicles being sold, although this was down by 35 per cent year-on-year. There were 338,000 alternatively fuelled cars and 295,000 diesels.