EV Sales Surge, China Tops UK Sales - What Happened in September 2026

Something extraordinary has just happened in the British car market. The best-selling new car in the UK during September was Chinese, and almost 100,000 fully electric cars were registered in a single month, plus plug-in hybrids surged by more than 55%, and Tesla, after all the controversy and negative publicity around Elon Musk, suddenly put two cars into the overall UK top five. Ford, once almost synonymous with the British car market, saw its September registrations fall by more than 27%, and despite record electric car sales, manufacturers are still falling short of the government's ZEV mandate. So what on earth is happening to the UK car market? Are rocketing fuel prices finally pushing people to electric cars? Have buyers stopped caring where their cars come from? Why is Tesla back? And are plug-in hybrids the sensible middle ground, or are some owners buying them without fully understanding that the clue is in the name, you actually have to plug them in to use them correctly? Let's look at all of this in a little bit more detail, because plate change September 2026 may turn out to be a genuinely significant month in the UK car trade. September does matter because the plate change usually accounts for around one in every seven cars registered during the entire year, giving us one of the clearest snapshots of where the market is heading and what it's doing. And this September was pretty huge by all accounts. A total of 350,536 new cars are registered. That's an increase of 12% over September last year and the strongest September since 2017. It was also the 10th consecutive month in which the market grew. Look beneath the headline and the type of cars people are buying and the manufacturers they are buying from is also changing dramatically. Battery electric cars their best month ever with 99,201 registrations. That's up 36.3% and reaching 28.3% of the market. Plug-in hybrids grew even faster up 55.5% to 59,571 registrations and a 17% market share. Conventional hybrids actually slipped by 4.3% during the month and petrol fell by 6.7% and diesel surprisingly rose by 11.5% which is shocking considering that diesel prices are rocketing right now. But keep in mind that that still only accounted for about 4% of the market. Add full electric, plug-in hybrid and conventional hybrid cars together and so-called electrified vehicles accounted for a record 58.4% of September registrations. We still need to be a little bit careful with that word electrified because it includes hybrids which you know still get their energy from petrol. Cars with an actual charging plug however represented 45.3% while pure EVs accounted for 28.3% as I've already mentioned. Even so, the direction of travel is clear. Full EVs and plug-in hybrids together accounted for nearly 47,700 more registrations compared with last September while the entire market grew by only 37,600. In other words, cars with a plug accounted for all of the net growth in the market and then some because petrol and conventional hybrids apparently seemed to go backwards. So why now? Fuel prices must be part of the answer. During September, petrol pushed beyond 169 pence per litre and diesel passed 191 pence and they continue to rise. Already this month we're talking I think 177 pence per litre for petrol and over 200 pence per litre for diesel. A 55 litre diesel fill-up now costs over £110. When people see those numbers glowing at the fuel station, an electric car suddenly starts to look more tempting, particularly if they can charge cheaply at home. Rely mainly on expensive rapid chargers however and that advantage can shrink dramatically. You must also consider the purchase price, finance, depreciation and insurance, plus the likelihood that fuel prices will probably come down at some point. We cannot look at September registrations and calculate exactly how many buyers switched because of fuel prices because many of these cars would have been ordered weeks or maybe even months earlier. But the SMMT Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders itself says that high fuel prices are undoubtedly giving more consumers a reason to consider going electric. Other forces are at work too. Government grants, discounts, aggressive finance deals and 178 fully electric models now available which is more than double the choice that we had three years ago in 2023. Yet manufacturers are having to work extremely hard to put buyers into them and of course that then brings us to the ZEV mandate. Across the first nine months of 2026, fully electric cars accounted for 26.2% of registrations which is up 22.1% from last year but still well below the 33% headline government target. Based on the industry's current forecast for the full year market, reaching that 33% share would require approximately 265,000 more electric cars to be registered in the final three months. That would mean EVs taking roughly 60% of all remaining registrations. Not likely, even with fuel prices currently where they are. Manufacturers do have flexibilities, credits, trading arrangements so missing the 33% does not automatically mean a colossal fine for them not yet. It does show however the gap between cars that people are choosing and the timetable arbitrarily set by the government even after grants and heavy discounting and of course you know the huge boost that EVs are getting because of global events. The government estimates that car makers are already spending £2,800 extra per EV in discounts during last year and this year. Somebody ultimately has to pay for that pressure, right? Now let's talk about the car at the top of the chart because this is arguably the biggest shock of all, no? The Jayco 7 was Britain's best-selling car in September, that's new car that is, with 10,814 registrations. It beat the Model 3 from Tesla, the Ford Puma, the Kia Sportage and the Tesla Model Y. Now that's the second month this year it's done that. Previously it was at the top back in March. The Jayco 7 is now the second best-selling car in Britain for the whole of 2026 with 39,474 registrations. It sits only 3,452 behind the Ford Puma and is actually in contention to become Britain's best-selling car of the year. The Jayco 7 offers the shape and visual presence that buyers seem to want. There's plenty of equipment, you get a choice of petrol or a plug-in hybrid and it comes with a seven-year warranty and pricing which undercuts similar looking rivals, shall we say, considerably. British buyers will clearly try an unfamiliar badge when the product and the deal make sense. Jayco, of course, is one arm of a much bigger operation. Combine Jayco with Omoda, Cherry itself, which is the parent company, and the newly arrived Lepus brand and you get 32,830 September registrations, which is 9.37% of the market last month. That's approaching one in every 10 cars. Across the year, those four brands have registered 124,000 cars and taken just over 7% of the market. At the same stage last year, their combined share was only a little over 2%. That's a 5% gain in just a year. That is staggering. Cherry's own UK brand registered 9,793 cars in September. It has now 100 retailers, an R&D center at Millbrook and four SUV lines. Cherry says more than 83% use its super hybrid technology. The group's rise tells us that this is more than just about electric cars. Chinese manufacturers have spotted that buyers from Britain, they want well-equipped SUVs at attainable prices, and several of them are using hybrids and plug-in hybrids to win over those customers who are not quite ready to go full EV. Check out BrownCarGuy's latest novel, Silent Ruin. Action, adventure, spies, betrayal, romance, plus, of course, cool cars and car chases. It's got the lot. And don't forget how to be an automotive content creator. The Uless Files and Quantum Races. All BrownCarGuy's books are available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. So where does that all leave the established players? It's not great news. Ford's September registrations fell by 27.3%, and its year-to-date sales are down 9.3%. Its market share has dropped from 5.8% to 4.77%. The Puma remains Britain's best-selling model across the year, but one successful car is carrying a lot of weight. Vauxhall is actually up 6.1% across the year, but the market has grown faster, so its overall share has actually slipped slightly. Volkswagen remains the country's biggest individual market. Its registrations are down only 2.1%, but its share has fallen from 8.92% to 7.92%. And then there's Tesla. So earlier this year, Tesla appeared to be suffering from aging products, stronger competition, and a backlash against Elon Musk's political antics. Yet in September, the Model 3 was the second best-selling car in Britain with 9,929 registrations, while the Model Y was fifth with 5,946 registrations. Together, those two cars accounted for 16% of every new EV registered during the month. Tesla's September total almost doubled, and the brand is up more than 32% across 2026 so far. So has everybody suddenly forgotten all the controversy or forgiven it? Sales figures cannot tell us what buyers think about Elon Musk, and I doubt public opinion has performed a handbrake turn that quickly, but the commercial explanation is probably a little bit more convincing. Tesla offered 0% finance on its Model 3 with a 2,500 deposit contribution and advertised payments from I think it was like £250 a month, subject to substantial deposit and final payment, etc. September also saw Tesla close its third quarter, and the company has a habit of concentrating deliveries near the quarter end to make their figures look better. Tesla is already growing before September, of course, and the recovery has appeared in several European markets. High fuel prices, incentives, easier comparisons with a week previous year, and competitive deals are kind of all helping to bring Tesla back. The plate change in quarter end delivery push, of course, then magnified it. It seems plenty of consumers will separate the car from the chief executive when the monthly payment looks appealing enough. Principles are powerful, but 0% APR can be remarkably persuasive too, it seems. The other major story is the extraordinary growth of plug-in hybrids. They are increased by 55.5% in September and 41.8% across the year so far. On paper, a plug-in hybrid offers the best of both worlds. They sound great. Local driving on electricity and a petrol engine when you need to go on a longer journey. For many households, that is an excellent solution. But it only works properly if you actually plug them in. Official figures that you get with these cars assume that much of the driving is done on electricity because owners are plugging them in. However, government research says that many drivers charge far less frequently and with the real-world CO2 emissions estimated at three to seven times more than the official figure that the manufacturers put out. Now, that doesn't mean the figure was wrong. It just means that people are not using these plug-ins correctly. Having said that, the same government review did estimate that 2025 plug-in electric hybrid vehicles were still around 40% cleaner in real-world CO2 terms than the combustion or conventional hybrid car. So, the technology does have real potential when it is used as intended. If you have no easy way to charge your car or you simply know that you're not going to actually bother plugging it in, then I would strongly recommend don't go for a plug-in hybrid. Go for a regular hybrid because that's a more honest, simpler, and perhaps more efficient car for your circumstances. Yet, conventional hybrids, however, in September fell. Although they remain up by 7.9% across the year, so they are still very much part of the market discussion. Now, these figures reveal a market that is being reshaped from several directions at once. Fuel prices are making electricity more attractive. Government rules are pushing EVs. Cheap finance and discounts are bringing buyers into new cars. Plug-in hybrids are becoming the compromise choice that people are going for. And Chinese manufacturers are giving buyers the SUVs, the equipment levels, and the prices that they want to pay. For established brands, familiarity is apparently losing its power. Buyers are being pragmatic. They ask, well, what can I get? What will it cost me each month? And how long does the warranty last? And how much energy does it use? The badge is coming further down their considerations. For the government, September offers encouragement and a warning. Almost 100,000 electric cars proves that demand can grow quickly when the choice and the financial proposition improve. But a year-to-date share of 26.2% also shows the difficulty of forcing it towards that ZEV mandate 33% and beyond on the current timetable, despite the favorable circumstances. The transition is happening, but buyers are deciding its pace, its shape, and perhaps most surprisingly, which manufacturers will lead it. It seems like it will be the Chinese. And talking of it, which the Jayco 7 could now finish 2026 as Britain's best-selling car. Cherry's brands have gone from outsiders to a combined September share approaching 10%. Tesla, like I said, is back near the top, and cars with a plug are generating all the growth in the market. And that is staggering in terms of the amount of change that we have seen in such a short space of time. So what do you make of it all? Are higher fuel prices making you consider an EV? Would you buy a Chinese car now? Do you think the Jayco can actually beat the Ford Puma to the number one spot for the year? And if you own a plug-in hybrid, be honest, how often are you actually plugging it in? Let me know all these things in the comments. I look forward to reading them. Thanks so much for watching. Hope you found this useful. 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