The UK hits ‘peak petrol’, as EV sales rise and petrol car sales fall

• The UK consumer transition to electric vehicles continues to drive foward, with Auto Trader’s latest forecast indicating that the number of petrol cars on the road – not just new petrol cars sold – is set to decline from 2025.
• In 2024, the number of petrol cars on UK roads peaked at 18.7 million, but this is set for a steady decline over the next decade – with this number set to reduce to around 17.7 million by 2026, and further down to 11.1 million by 2034 – a near halving of the current figure.
• Meanwhile, the number of EVs within the UK’s car parc is set to rise from its current figure of 1.25 million to 13.7 million by 2034. Additionally, the number of diesel cars in the UK’s car parc is also expected to drop from approximately 10 million at present to 4.3 million in 2034.

It’s not just new EV sales driving up the proportion of EVs on the road

That 13.7 million number calculated by Auto Trader will come four years after the government is set to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars, after which point passenger car sales will be nearly entirely electric – with a smaller number of hybrids allowed to be sold until 2035. This 2030 date is standing strong, despite the government reviewing ‘flexibilities’ that can be made to help some manufacturers meet the targets.

With an increasing number of existing petrol and diesel cars set to come to the end of their lives over the coming years, manufacturers will be hoping to sell them an electric car to meet these targets – a task that should become ever easier to fulfil, with many EVs beginning to achieve equal or near price parity with their ICE counterparts. Ford’s all-electric Puma, revealed this week, is another example of such an EV. That’s before we come to the used EV market, where electric models are priced even more attractively. Auto Trader notes that one in three EVs on its site are priced below the £20,000 mark.

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Ian Plummer, Commercial Director at Auto Trader UK, commented on the results:

“Peak petrol is a genuine landmark for the UK. We expect to see a seismic shift in British motoring over the next decade as the number of petrol cars falls by nearly half and EVs take a much bigger share.”