New Car Sales Continue To Perform

Published Date: 5th Apr 2013

The upward trend for brand new car registrations continued in March with the SMMT reporting an increase of more than 5% on March 2012 figures with nearly 395,000 units (official figure is 394,806). 

This is the 13th consecutive month new car sales have been on the up and shows despite a difficult economic climate that people have a lot of confidence and desire to purchase new vehicles with the latest technology and the ‘the pull’ of more efficient cars with lower emissions and a better economy is continuing to play a large part in buying decisions. 

Small cars, super-efficient diesels and hybrids/alternative fuel vehicles have traditionally been giving new car buyers the option of zero road tax and lower running costs and have been very popular amongst buyers but with the rise of some very efficient petrol engines especially in the smaller car sector and the addition of new fuel-efficient technology from manufacturer’s, petrol-fuelled new car sales have risen by 12.1% so far in 2013.

If you are travelling in and out of London on a regular basis the lure of avoiding the London congestion charge with low emission engines is proving to good to resist for a lot of people and the mini sector performed the best in March with growth up 56.5%, due to the incredible popularity of some new models on the market.  Excellent figures are also reported for new MPV cars and Dual Purpose vehicles with emphasis definitely pointing towards practicality, efficiency and lower running costs. It’s no surprise then that upper-end of the new car market and luxury didn’t perform as well.