Registrations of new zero emission light goods vehicles plummet

There were 3,600 zero emission, new light goods vehicles (LGVs) registered for the first time in April to June, a decrease of 23%, compared to the same quarter last year.

Zero emission LGVs accounted for 4% of all new LGV registrations, a slight decrease from the figure of 5% in April to June 2023.

However, the new figures from the Department for Transport (DfT) show that registrations of new zero-emission cars grew year-on-year.

There were 83,000 zero emission cars registered for the first time in April to June 2024, an increase of 8% on the same quarter in 2023.

Zero-emission cars accounted for 18% of all new car registrations, compared to 17% in April to June 2023.

The graph below shows the new zero emission registrations of cars and LGVs as a percentage of all new registrations in the first quarter (April to June) since 2019.

Until 2022, both vehicle types had seen large growths in their proportion of registrations on the previous year, since 2019.

However from 2022 onwards, the proportion of zero emission LGVs has seen marginal decreases.

Zero emission cars accounted for 17.5% of new vehicle registrations while zero emission LGVs accounted for 4.2% (down from 5.5% in April to June 2023).

Source: DfT

The latest figures for 2024 Q2 (April to June) also show that the number of new vehicle registrations increased by 2%, when compared to 2023 Q2 (April to June).

At the end of June 2024, there were 1,183,000 licensed zero emission vehicles on the road, representing 2.8% of all licensed vehicles.

Comparing 2024 Q2 with the same quarter in 2023, in the UK there were 625,000 vehicles registered for the first time, an increase of 2%; 88,000 vehicles registered for the first time that were zero emission, an increase of 6%; and 83,000 cars registered for the first time that were zero emission, an increase of 8%.

At the end of June 2024, compared to June 2023, in the UK there were 41.7 million licensed vehicles, an increase of 1%; 1,183,000 licensed zero emission vehicles, an increase of 39%, including 1,089,000 zero emission cars, an increase of 40%.

At the end of June 2024 zero emission vehicles accounted for 2.8% of all licensed vehicles, an increase of 0.7 percentage points compared to the end of June 2023.