Record-breaking EV sales in March: comment

Responding to New Automotive’s car sales data for March 2025 [1] Colin Walker, Head of Transport at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), said:

“March has easily broken the record set in September 2024 for the number of EVs sold in a single month. In fact, looking across the entire quarter, EV sales have increased faster than any other drivetrain. Notions of a lack of consumer demand in what is Europe’s largest EV market look ever more detached from reality.
 
“EV market share for the year so far is just shy of the 22.7% that the car industry as a whole needs to hit in 2025 to comply with the Government’s EV sales targets. With EV sales likely to continue increasing as the year progresses, the industry is on course to repeat its success of 2024 in demonstrating its ability to meet the challenge set by the ZEV mandate. As EV prices are driven down as manufacturers compete for sales to hit their targets, the ultimate beneficiaries are Britain’s drivers, with more and more being able to afford to make the shift to cleaner and cheaper electric driving.
 
“Any weakening of the mandate could remove this dynamic, sending prices up and sales of new EVs back down. The growth of the second-hand EV market, where most of us buy our cars, would be stunted – leaving millions of families stuck in petrol cars paying a petrol premium of hundreds, and even thousands, of pounds a year”.
 
Analysis by the ECIU found that by 2048 a weakening of the ZEV mandate could result in sales similar to the ‘lower option’ considered by the previous Government when designing the policy, resulting in 2.7m fewer EVs entering the second hand market than would otherwise have been the case by 2048. This means that a total of around £40bn in extra motoring costs would have to be shouldered by millions of families across the UK, including some of the poorest. [2]

A recent report by CBI Economics [3], commissioned by the ECIU, revealed that a failure by the car industry to make the transition to manufacturing EVs could see its contributions to the UK economy fall by as much as 73%, or £34.1bn, and over 400,000 jobs could be lost. Conversely, economic output could increase by over £16bn, and 167,000 new jobs could be created, if a rapid and successful transition takes place. Government support is critical in avoiding such an outcome, and this includes the provision of a stable and supportive regulatory environment through keeping measures like the ZEV Mandate in place.

ENDS

Notes to editors:

1. https://storage.googleapis.com/public_download_assets/ecc_pdfs/20250403%20ECC%20March%202025.pdf
    
2. https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/2025/2-7-million-families-saddled-with-1-600-petrol-premium-if-ev-policy-weakened
    
3. https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/2024/34bn-loss-car-industry-could-crash-if-ev-investment-stalled 

For more information or for interview requests:

Colin Walker, Head of Transport, ECIU, Tel: +44 (0)7779 284912, email: colin.walker@eciu.net