Over a million electric cars on the road but 60% are registered to companies

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) has released their 2024 Motorparc data which shows that there are now more vehicles on Britain’s roads than ever before.

In 2024, the total number of vehicles on British roads rose by 1.4% to 41,964,268. 

(‘Parc’ is a European term for all registered vehicles within a defined geographic region).

The number of battery electric cars has grown to over 1.3 million, representing an increase of 38.9% year on year, although nearly 60% of them are company cars, despite company cars only making up 10% of the cars on the road.

As a consequence, CO2 emissions from company cars plummeted 5.6% last year, compared to a 1% fall in emissions from private cars.

Of the new cars registered last year, 19.6% were BEVs, which now make up 3.7% of all cars in use, a full percentage point up on 2023.

1.6% of all the vans on the road are electric, 4.9% of coaches and buses and 0.7% of HGVs.

Coaches and buses saw a dramatic an 81.8% increase in zero emission units but once again the total number of buses and coaches on the road has fallen to the lowest level since people started counting them

The figures also show that cars are staying on the road for longer. In 2019 the average car on the road was eight years old, in 2023 it was 9.3 and now it’s 9.5. 

43.4% of all cars on the road are now over ten years old, which is of concern as they predate the Euro 6 vehicle emission standards which were introduced in September 2015.

Mike Hawes, SMMT Chief Executive said: ‘Britain’s vehicle parc is growing, providing essential mobility for the nation while reducing its environmental impact. However, there is scope to push environmental improvements much faster as motorists are holding onto their cars for longer, some one and half years longer on average, than only five years ago.

‘Drivers need more incentives and greater confidence in infrastructure investment if we are to replace the high volumes of older high-emission cars with zero-emission alternatives. Success will keep the country on the move while driving up economic growth from every business dependent on road transport.’