A stumble in the demand for electric cars in the UK could be benefiting diesel cars, at least in the short term, new data has shown.
In December 2023, EV sales fell 34%, while diesel car sales actually rose 12%, briefly interrupting a decline that began back 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 whole year, giving this fuel type a 24% share, according to GlobalData.
The linking factor is premium. Customers of larger, 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 share of Germany, at just 7.5% last year, but JLR (formerly Jaguar Land Rover) is now by far the biggest seller of diesels in the UK.
In fact, Land Rover’s diesel sales doubled year-on-year in January to more than 2700, led by the Land Rover 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 recently said it was lengthening the development period of its EVs, reducing its 2021 commitment to build six electric Land Rover models by 2026 to four.
CEO Adrian Mardell recently said it was looking to increase availability of plug-in hybrids – the fuel type that overtook diesels overall across the UK last year.
For the moment, though, diesel remains dominant at the company in terms of UK sales.
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.
For the business driver back in 2008, the 520d was the ultimate blend of performance, cachet and tax efficiency. At that point, BMW 5 Series sales were 93% D-badged as the UK headed towards its diesel pinnacle in 2011, when diesels accounted for half the car market.
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